


like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere)

by palomeheart



Series: laph [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: AU- Botanic Garden, Gardens & Gardening, Getting Together, M/M, Magical Realism, Mental Health Issues, Rabbits, Spring, Strangers to Lovers, Vomiting, Weather, or at least an attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 02:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18863905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palomeheart/pseuds/palomeheart
Summary: Dan is in his second year of uni studying law– or he would be if he hadn’t failed his resits. After being talked into a semester-long leave of absence to get his life in order, he takes a job at the café of a local botanic garden through a flatmate’s family connection. Or so he thinks.





	like a perhaps hand (which comes carefully out of Nowhere)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basl/gifts).



> For [basl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basl/pseuds/basl).
> 
> I loved your prompts so much I combined two of them, and then got a little carried away. I hope you enjoy this take on Dan and Phil gardening plus some strange rabbit happenings!
> 
> Many thanks to my very patient, flexible and supportive beta reader, D. 
> 
> The title comes from the e.e. cummings poem 'spring is like a perhaps hand.' Also the gardener in me feels the need to add that the timing of the planting and blooming was based more off of a general enthusiasm for spring and progression of the story than any real seasonality.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” 

Dan looks down at his black skinny jeans and button up shirt, at a loss for what to say. It is quite literally what he’s wearing, but a sarcastic response on top of an apparently unsatisfactory outfit on his first day of work might be pushing it a little too much. He thinks he looks pretty good, even if the shirt has a few wrinkles. What kind of uni student owns an iron, anyway? Or potentially ex-uni student, as the case may be. Either way, he thinks he looks good enough to work in a café. He’d paid attention to the people serving him coffee the past few days when he’d gone to Starbucks and he thinks he looks slightly more professional than them. Do botanic garden cafés have a different standard? Was he supposed to wear a floral pattern, or something?

“Er, yeah. Sorry. They didn’t mention a uniform when they told me I got the job.” 

The woman in front of him is nearly as tall as he is, which is already enough to throw Dan off a bit. In most other ways she’s his exact opposite, with her tan, weathered skin, deep laugh lines, and muscular build. She hasn’t actually introduced herself yet, but Dan’s assuming this is his flatmate’s aunt who charitably offered him a job he was in no way qualified for. 

“There’s not, but generally people don’t do landscaping in collared shirts.”

“Sorry,” Dan repeats, sounding more and more like his grandma by the second, “but did you say landscaping?”

“You are Dan, right?” Dan considers for a moment saying no. He could just laugh and say no, his name is actually Carl and he must be in the wrong place, sorry for the confusion. If it weren’t for the fact that this woman bears a striking resemblance to his flatmate who swore up and down his aunt had an easy, well paying job open and that she did say his name, he might think there had been some sort of mix up. Because he certainly hadn’t signed up for a landscaping job. Maybe there was a mix up. Dan’s a common name, right? Could they have possibly hired two new people on the same day, both named Dan?

“Yeah, that’s me. I just thought– the person who I spoke to on the phone said there was a café?” He doesn’t mean for it to come out a question, because she most certainly had said that, and that’s the one fact he’s still desperately clinging to. 

“And who did you speak to?” 

Dan can’t actually remember her name, but that doesn’t feel like a useful thing to admit at the moment. He thinks it was a kind of plant, but had he just made that up? Now that he thinks about it, it does seem a little suspect. He’s got to say something though, or else just leave now and never come back. He’s not really the garden sort, anyway.

“I want to say Holly?”

“Holly. I don’t– oh!” Her face darkens for a terrifying moment, then breaks into a grin, extending her hand out to Dan. “You mean Polly. I’m sorry, let’s start over, I’m doing a horrible job of welcoming you to the team. I’m Alice, Liam’s aunt. And you’re Dan, his flatmate. I feel like I should apologize for not teaching him basic hygiene skills. What can I say, he was a lost cause from a young age.” 

It takes Dan a few beats too long to reach out to shake her hand, still recovering from the shock of her complete 180. Her handshake is firm, to the point of hurting just a bit, and her palms are wide and rough. When she releases her grip, he hooks his hands behind his back. 

“Er, that’s alright. He’s not all that bad.”

“Well, you must either be very kind, or have a very poor sense of smell. Either way, you’ll fit right in here.” Dan barely has time to process that and what the hell it’s supposed to mean before she’s moving on. “I hate to start you off on a bad note, but I’m afraid I have some bad news.” 

His stomach drops. “There’s no café?”

“No, there is one. It just doesn’t open until May. And last I’d checked it’s March.”

“Oh. Alright.” He’s trying to come up with some sort of response, but his mind has gone completely blank. Did he misunderstand Polly on the phone? “Sorry about that, I just thought Polly said I could work there–”

“Yeah, she probably did. She’s an idiot. It’s best to ignore her. But it seems to me we’ve got two options. Either you can come back in May and we can set you up at the cafe, or we can put you to work now in the gardens. What do you think?”

“Um.” Dan stares at Alice, her hands planted on her hips, stance wide, grinning as if she’d offered him two fantastic, infallable solutions. He thinks he should maybe be concerned that she just cheerfully insulted her coworker, and definitely be concerned that she’s offered him a job working in the gardens. “I don’t really have any experience working with plants.”

“Do you have experience working in a café?” 

He should probably lie, but they do have a copy of his resumé, such as it is. “Well, no. But making drinks seems a little easier to learn, right?”

“Why’s that?”

“I’m not in charge of anything living, for one.”

“Untrue. You could easily poison someone.” Dan’s urge is to laugh, but he can’t tell if Alice is being sincere or not. 

“Alice, what the fuck are you on about? Are you hazing the new recruits again?” Dan looks up to see another woman standing in the doorway. She’s much paler and shorter than Alice, with broad shoulders and a rounder frame, but Dan’s eyes are drawn to her short, bright purple hair styled into asymmetric spikes. “Don’t let her scare you, you won’t poison anyone. Well, as long as you stay away from the pesticides. I’m Nina.” She offers her hand, which is dwarfed by Dan’s own, but just as rough as Alice’s. “They/them pronouns.” They level Dan with a hard look, but this is the test he’s felt most equipped to pass so far.

“Dan. Um, he/him.” This earns him a grin and a wink.

“Nina, Dan here is just deciding if he wants to keep working with us, even though the job description got a little garbled.”

“Is that why you look like you should be in a cubicle?”

“Be nice. Is there anything Dan could do for you today if he decides to stay?”

“There’s always the mountain of pots that need washing. They’re threatening to take over the whole west wall of the bunker.”

“So you want him to do your job for you?”

“Exactly, that’d be great. I’ve gotta go check on the children. Good luck, Dan! Welcome aboard.” With that they’re off, leaving Dan wondering if there’s a daycare here too. Maybe he could do that instead. He’s good with kids.

“Their plants. They’ve got a bench in one of the research houses with some newly sprouted seedlings.” Right. Plant children in the greenhouse. “So what do you think?” 

Everything in Dan wants to say no. He should say no. It’s definitely a terrible idea to accept a job doing something he knows absolutely nothing about, especially when his inexperience could lead to several deaths, even if it’s only plant life he’d be sacrificing. Not to mention he’s terribly unfit, hates spending a bunch of time outside, is terrified of insects, and should definitely never be given control of power tools. 

On the other hand, this job is being essentially handed to him with no interview, regardless of his lack of experience not only in gardening, but in practically everything, save getting fired for selling axes to children. And he needs the money. His bank card might as well have laughed at him last time he tried to buy groceries.

“Alright.”

“That’s the spirit,” Alice cheers, ignoring his decided lack of spirit. “Why don’t you follow me and we’ll find you a pair of gloves and your very own trowel and we’ll get you started. Now, your hands are quite big, aren’t they? Most of us have got freakishly big hands, except for Nina, so I don’t know if we have any extra-larges left. We had one spare pair, but I can’t remember if that was before or after Phil managed to set his on fire.” Alice continues her ramblings as she leads him through a maze of hallways between the greenhouses, and Dan tries to count the turns before he gives up.

He’d been to this garden once before on a date with his ex, but they’d stuck mostly to the front few greenhouses and the gardens directly outside the building. He’d had no idea that there was this much back here. At the end of the fourth hallway, Alice leads him through a door into a dim room, the air damp and cool and heavy with the smell of soil. Windows line the hallway to let some light in from the adjacent greenhouse, but the rest of the room is windowless and, Dan suspects, under the hill the building is set into.

“This is the bunker, where most of the supplies are stored. It’s also where we do the repotting and grafting and general plant care and things like that. You’ll find all of the soil and pots you could ever dream of in that room back there,” she gestures to a door off in the corner, not giving Dan time to point out he has never once dreamed of soil, “and the sinks are in the back. That’s where you’ll be washing pots later. There are always pots to wash. There’s also a microwave and some mugs in the cabinet above the sink. Feel free to claim one for yourself.” Dan nods absently, already having given up on storing all of that information away. “Are you ready?”

“Er, for what, exactly?” 

“Oh, right! We’re going to get you on planting some hostas out on the east side of the building. It will be really easy, I promise. Have you ever dug a hole before?” He wants to say yes, but he finds himself frantically wracking his brain again, this time trying to remember if he’s ever dug a hole in his life. Surely he has. Why do people dig holes? To bury bodies? There must be other reasons, but his brain gets stuck on that and he doesn’t want to be labeled a murderer on his first day.

“No?”

“Okay, a true beginner. We’ll get someone to go out there and help you out. Let’s see…” She looks around the room, empty save for Nina who is drinking from a mug that says ‘I <3 ferns’ with a strange lumpy, green heart and studiously avoiding eye contact. “I don’t– oh Phil! Perfect!” As she calls out his name, Phil turns sharply and does an awkward half jog back to the door to stick his head in. He’s bent over a bit, but looks to be nearly as tall as the door frame, with jet black hair styled in a way similar to Dan’s out of date emo fringe. He’s got an awkward sort of smile on, similar to the one Dan always feels himself pull when he’s being introduced to someone new, but it seems more sincere on Phil, somehow. Dan also notes his Pokemon t-shirt with mild interest. Maybe not everyone here is a plant jock, or whatever you call this class of people Dan didn't know existed until today.

“Dan, this is Phil. Phil, Dan has just started working with us.”

“The Phil who set his gloves on fire?” The easy grin immediately drops of Phil’s face and his cheeks redden, and Dan could kick himself. This was his one chance at having at least one acquaintance at work who he might be able to have a non-plant related conversation with.

“Just the one! He’s our media and photography specialist here. And website manager. Basically he does everything that isn’t plants.”

“Cool. So… he’s going to help me with the plants?” Nina snorts from the corner and Phil cracks a grin again.

“Phil is our expert hole digger.”

“Digs himself into holes daily!” Nina calls cheerfully, and Phil sticks his tongue out at them.

“Can you help Dan plant the variegated hostas in the eastern garden? I’ve set them all out, so you just have to dig where the pots are and fill them in. I’ll come by later today to get some mulch on them.”

“Yeah, no problem. We can go grab some shovels and get started. I’ll show you where we keep them.” Phil nods his head towards the door and Dan makes his way over, awkwardly shuffling past a stack of ceramic pots that he almost manages to knock over as he slides through.

“Great. You’re in good hands, Dan. Just don’t let Phil actually touch the plants,” Alice calls after them.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Phil says, snagging Dan by the elbow and tugging him through the doorway. “She’s just joking. The shovels and everything are down in this closet over here.” He leads Dan to a closet and reaches in, his body almost but not quite blocking the utter chaos of the tools strewn about the small space. Phil turns to hand Dan the shovels, which are heavier than he’d been expecting, and must notice Dan’s look of shock. “Yeah, it’s a bit of a mess in there. I was supposed to sort it at the end of the winter, but I haven’t gotten around to it. Actually, they’ll probably have you do it. Usually it’s the newest employee that gets tool sortinging duty. You’ve got gloves?”

“No, we never actually got that far.” 

Phil takes a glance down at Dan’s hands, then turns back into the closet, screeching a bit at a clatter, then leaning further in. “All good. I think there’s one last pair in here that should fit you. We need to order more.”

“Thanks. I don’t really need them if–”

“You’ll want them, trust me. I tried to go without at first because the ones they gave me were too small, and my hands were like one giant blister for two weeks.”

“Oh, okay then. Thanks,” Dan repeats, feeling idiotic. Phil just hums and keeps rummaging. “I don’t mind, by the way. Cleaning the closet, I mean. I kind of like organizing things, actually. And it seems easier than… whatever else it is I’m supposed to do.”

“You say that now. You weren’t here for the great cave in of 2010. Here they are!” Phil extracts himself, waving a pair of green and brown gloves in the air. He’s also got two thin blue foam pads and two little shovels– those must be the trowels Alice mentioned earlier, but he’s glad he didn’t have to identify them himself. “This should be good. You can try them on if you want.” Dan takes the proffered gloves and tugs them on as Phil leans against the door to secure it. They are a little tight, especially across the base of his palm, and they feel thick and a bit foreign, deadening his sense of touch. 

“They’re good.”

“Great, let’s get going. The longer we wait, the worse the sun will get, and I’m pretty sure Alice and Nina are placing bets on how long it’s going to take me to get my first sunburn.” Dan follows Phil silently through the maze of hallways, then outside to a small garden running along the right side of the building. There’s a group of small, leafy plants in black plastic pots lined up along the wall, spaced out evenly. 

“Oh, they really are already set out.” 

“Yeah, I’m not allowed to arrange the plants anymore, I just put them in the ground. My third week they told me to plant a bunch bulbs, and when they bloomed the next spring they would up accidentally looking a bit like… well, vaguely dick shaped.” 

Dan lets out a sharp laugh. “Accidentally?”

“Yes!” Phil protests, reddening again. It’s quite easy to get him to blush, Dan notes. He reaches out and grabs a shovel from Dan, dumping the trowels and blue pads on the ground. “It’s hard to tell what shape you’re planting bulbs in. So they always set the plants out for me now, but it’s just because they think they’re hilarious.”

“You don’t have a secret agenda of phallically arranged shrubbery.”

“Well, I didn’t say anything about phallic shrubbery.” Phil winks, or at least attempts to, and bends down to grab the first plant while Dan tries to choke on his own spit as quietly as possible. “So these are hostas. I know that because Alice told me to plant the hostas. They also should all have labels in them. They all know the name of like every plant in the world and forget that it’s not common knowledge, so if they ever ask you to plant or pull something you don’t know, just ask them to show it to you. I started taking pictures after I accidentally weeded out some really rare and expensive flower last year.”

“Did you get in trouble?” Dan asks, thinking it’s only a matter of time until he makes a similar or worse mistake.

“A little. Alice freaked out, but she didn’t yell at me. She just told me to double check if I wasn’t sure about something.” Phil’s started moving down the line of plants pressing and spinning each pot into the dirt before picking it up and placing it next to it. “So we know where to dig,” he adds, catching Dan watching the process. “Honestly, this is a really great place to work. I studied English Language and Linguistics in uni and then postproduction, and I definitely never meant to end up working at a garden. But everyone here is really nice, even if they’re a bit crazy and like to give each other shit. And it’s nice being surrounded by plants all day.” 

The words reassure Dan a bit, though he’s not sure if he’s ready to agree with that last part, especially if it involves digging a lot of holes. The tip of his shovel has just barely sunk into the ground, and he has a brief moment of worrying that he’s somehow using the shovel wrong. Is there a wrong way to use a shovel? He’d assumed it was fairly straight forward, but when he looks over at Phil, he’s already got a small pile of dirt next to a shallow hole. 

Determined not to fuck up the simplest task they could think of to start him off, Dan starts stabbing at the soil with the shovel, the impact of the shovel against the unyielding earth reverberating through his hands and forearms. 

“The soil’s still a little bit frozen over here in the shade of the building I think,” Phil says, suddenly very close to Dan. Dan manages to keep a grip on his shovel, but just barely. “If you put your boot– er, shoe, on the back of the shovel here and then press with your legs instead of your arms it’s easier. Like this.” Phil demonstrates, pressing his foot on the little lip at the top of the shovel and rocking forward to step down on it. Sure enough, the shovel slides into the earth. “If you use your body weight to your advantage, it’s not as hard.”

“You calling me fat?” Dan grunts, trying to replicate Phil’s smooth movements and wobbling a bit to either side first as he tries to center his weight. Finally, though, the shovel sinks in and Dan looks up at Phil, beaming in pride. Phil, though, looks stricken.

“No, Dan, I–”

“Relax, mate. I was just joking. Sorry, I have a stupid sense of humor.” Phil visibly relaxes, and Dan makes a mental note not to joke around with him too much. He seems to take it mostly in stride when Alice and Nina rib him, but every time Dan’s tried, he gets flustered. He goes back to the far side of the row and continues with the hole he’d started earlier, still looking a bit worried.

“Okay. I just don’t want–”

“Seriously, don’t worry about it. I am terribly unfit, anyway. This job is probably going to kill me by the end of the week, so don’t get too attached.” Never one for sticking to resolutions to be less awkward, Dan follows up this death joke with a question that had already proven to make Phil uncomfortable. “How’d you set your gloves on fire anyway?” Phil pauses his digging, but doesn’t blush or avoid Dan’s eyes this time, just cocking his head to the side a bit, a small, devilish smile sneaking up one side of his mouth.

“You’re very formally dressed. Did you want to impress the plants?”

“Fair enough,” Dan says with a laugh, turning back to his work. They dig in silence for a bit, allowing Dan time to stew over all of the stupid things he’s said this morning, until Phil breaks him out of his musings.

“So what brought you here?”

“What do you mean?” Dan grips his shovel a little tighter, suddenly wishing he had pre-prepared some sort of backstory a little less depressing than the real one. Phil doesn't really seem like a judgemental person, but he’s not met anyone yet who doesn’t respond with the same pained, pitying face when he’s said he’s taking a leave of absence from school after having failed not just three rounds of finals, but the most recent round of resits as well.

“I mean– well I don’t mean anything by this, my arms are basically just giant noodles, but you don’t really seem like the gardening type.”

“Right. It’s just a job, I guess. I needed some money and my flatmate said his aunt was looking for more workers. That’s Alice. His aunt I mean. Even with the connection though, I honestly don’t know how I got hired here. Liam must have dirt on Alice or something.”

“Nah. I mean, to be honest, two of our regular employees are on family leave right now, and the general grounds worker we usually have just decided she didn’t want to come back for this season, so we were in a bit of a tight spot. Alice does tend to hire women more often than men, but she loves hiring people with little to no experience with plants. She says anyone can learn how to take care of them, but not everyone has the right temperament to nurture them.”

“She must not have gotten a good read on my temperament then. I’ve killed every plant I’ve tried to nurture.” Phil laughs, and Dan gets a stupid urge to start tallying every laugh he gets out of him. It feels like an accomplishment.

“Same. They really don’t let me do much with the plants, but they do mostly let me plant them now. At least the less picky ones.”

“There are picky plants?”

“Oh yeah. I mean I don’t know much, but plants all have completely different personalities. Some are really picky about sunlight or water, and some don’t really care. There are ones that you have to be really careful about their roots when you’re planting them, and those are the ones I’m not allowed to touch. But these ones don’t mind so much. We’ve actually got to give these ones little root massages, cuz they’re a bit rootbound. I was supposed to get them out earlier, but we had a frost last week, so it’s a good thing I was procrastinating.”

“Yeah,” Dan mutters. Even with Phil, who claims not to know much about plants, he feels overwhelmed with the way he understood each individual word, but still left the sentence with only a vague grasp of what Phil had said. “To be honest, I sort of thought I’d be working in the café.”

“Oh, you’re the one who talked to Polly? Sorry, I tried to tell her not to lie about the café, I don’t know why she did that.”

“That’s alright.” They fall into silence again and Dan takes a furtive look at Phil’s progress. He’s starting on his third hole, while Dan’s still trying to get his first to stop caving in. So much for noodle arms. His own feel like they’re about to fall off, and he’s still got five more holes to dig. In theory, at least. Phil will probably be digging some of his for him, at least if he wants to finish on time. He could just leave Dan to do his own half of the work; that would only be fair. Shame sending a hot flush through him, he starts digging a little faster. “Is she– Alice called her an idiot.”

“Yeah.” Phil pauses his digging again, resting on his shovel as he stares off into field beyond the boundary of the garden. “They don’t get along. Polly is… she can be difficult to work with. She’s got her own ideas about how things should go and she doesn’t tend to listen to anyone else. Alice is really nice though, don’t be too worried. It actually takes a lot to make her dislike people. And she seems to like you.”

“What about Nina? What’s their deal?” Phil doesn’t respond immediately, and Dan looks up from his hole, which has finally taken on a somewhat hole-like shape without the sides collapsing in every five seconds, to see Phil regarding him with a thoughtful look on his face.

“They’re a grad student. They’re studying… well something about climate change and plants and botanic gardens and ranges. To be honest I never really understand when they explain all of it, but it sounds cool. And they’re pretty awesome. They can get a bit grumpy sometimes, especially when they’ve got a deadline approaching, but they’re really very sweet most of the time.”

“Nice. Does anyone else work here?”

“Just John at the moment. He’s the arborist. You probably won’t see him around much, he gets here at 6 and leaves around 2:30.”

“Jesus!”

“I know. Eight is bad enough for me. He’s really great too. And, like, unfairly attractive.” Dan fights the urge to look up, instantly intrigued by this direction of the conversation. Why is Phil telling him their male coworker is hot? He hadn’t immediately gotten queer vibes off of him, but he sneaks a look out of the corner of his eye while Phil continues his ramble to reevauate. “Like, he looks kind of like Chris Hemsworth. His wife is super beautiful too.” 

He gets lost in considering if the inclusion of calling this man’s wife beautiful makes it more or less likely that Phil’s queer, but finally has to concede that it doesn’t really help him one way or another. Still, his pulse quickens at the vague possibility of going from knowing zero queer people in his current life to seeing two daily. He’s not out, particularly, but he’s restlessly wandered far enough from being in as well that his roommates no longer assume that it would be a girl that he might pull at the pub. Not that he ever really pulls at all, but he’s fooled around with a couple of guys from his program, and has earned a general aura of confusion, if nothing else. That’s been great and all, and felt like a big step at the time, but the idea of having actual queer acquaintances, or maybe even friends, who he could talk about Chris Hemsworth with, sends a whole new kind of warmth radiating through him.

His shovel hits a rock, and he’s jolted back into reality, realizing simultaneously that he’s managed to make his hole less hole shaped while he was daydreaming, and that, far from talking about Chris Hemsworth with Phil, he stopped replying after Phil said that. He’s no expert in queer friend making, but he’s pretty sure a way to not go about it is clamming up at the first mention of attractive men.

“Good to know,” is all he can come up with in the end, and it’s probably too late to help anyway. They both continue to dig, and Dan’s not sure if he’s making it up or not, but the silence seems to settle thicker between them. They each make their way down the line and Dan gets faster and better at keeping the walls of his hole from caving in, but they still meet somewhat left of center, with Phil having dug twelve to Dan’s eight. He still feels unreasonably proud of his work. 

“Okay, so it’s massage time.” This startles a laugh out of Dan, taking a moment to remember Phil had told him they’d need to massage the roots. Phil joins in, and just like that it’s easy again, in a way Dan hasn’t really experienced in… well, a while. He’s got friends at uni, or at least mates in his program and flatmates he goes out with every once in awhile, but he hasn’t felt really at ease with his peers basically since he can remember. Talking to Phil feels both easier and harder in a peculiar way he doesn’t quite know what to do with.

Phil shows him how to press his fingers into the holes on the underside of the pot and wiggle them a bit, then squeeze the thin plastic and draw the plant out with a firm but careful hold at the base of the stem. They massage the roots gently to coax them out of the tight ball they’d formed in the pot, then place them in the ground, pulling the excess soil up and around, filling in the sides and patting it gently down. It’s nice, in a way he hadn’t expected, like tucking them in. 

Dan takes Phil’s shovel from him so Phil can go get the hose to water them in, which is apparently a thing you do. He leans the tools against the side of the building so he can brush off his knees and realizes in horror that he’s completely covered in dirt, his nice collared shirt no longer white. This concern is short-lived, however, as he gets sprayed by an icy stream of water, soaking his shirt clear through and turning the dirt covering him into mud.

“Phil!”

“Crap, crap. Sorry! Hang on.” Phil runs after the hose, which had begun squirming around the garden bed when Phil had turned it on.

“If you’d wanted a wet t-shirt contest, you just had to ask,” Dan mutters, pulling at his shirt to try and pry it away from his now very erect nipples.

“I’m so sorry. I’m such a clutz. Usually I just spray myself with the water. Here, let me–” he finally grabs the hose and sprays the plants down quickly then pinches the rubber in his hand as he runs to shut it off again. “You must be freezing. I’ve got a spare change of clothes I keep here. They’d probably fit you.”

“No, I’ll be–”

“Really, I insist. There’s hours before work ends and you’ll be miserable if you don’t change. Come on. I can go grab them and then we can break for lunch. It’s a little early, but we didn’t take our morning break, so it’s fine.”

“I don’t–”

“Not that you have to eat with me! We just generally all eat in the classroom together, unless it’s nice out. But you can totally eat by yourself if you’d rather–”

“Phil, stop. That sounds great, really. Thank you.”

“Okay. Good. I’m really–”

“Stop apologizing. I was covered in dirt anyway, I needed a good hosing down.” Phil returns Dan’s smile with a tentative one of this own, grabbing all of the tools, probably in penance. Dan would tell him he doesn’t need to, but he’s not sure his arms can support any extra weight right now, so he trails behind, his wet jeans making an awful scraping sound with each step.

Phil leaves him to put the tools away, which gives him a terrifying glimpse into his future organizing task, and tells him to meet him back in the bunker. Phil hasn’t returned yet, but Nina’s there, perched over a microscope. They look up when he accidentally kicks a stool and break immediately into a fit of giggles.

“Sorry, it’s just–” another wave of laugher overtakes them for a few seconds, “Alice was just asking what the fuck was taking you two so long, and you’ve come back looking like you’ve done battle with the geese in the pond or something. What the hell happened?”

“Phil sprayed me with a hose.”

“And then challenged you to a mud wrestling competition?”

“No! I just– I was gardening. There’s dirt involved, isn’t there?”

“Yeah, but it’s supposed to stay on the ground. Did Phil not tell you that part?”

“Nina, don’t make me get out the photos of your first day. Speaking of–” Alice, coming up out of seemingly nowhere, holds up her phone, making a show of taking a few pictures of Dan. “Perfect. This will add nicely to our collection.”

“Oh my God, stop,” Phil says stepping into the room as well. He’s got a bundle of fabric in his arms and Dan’s never been happier to see the color yellow in his life. “You’re going to make him quit.”

“Because spraying him with a hose is such a welcoming gesture.”

“It was an accident!” Phil sets the clothes down on the counter and Dan takes the opportunity to snag them.

“Thanks, I’m just going to run and change.” He makes it to the bathroom without running into anyone else, locking the door behind him before giving the clothes a once over. Phil’s given him a green hoodie and a pair of black skinny jeans not dissimilar to his own, in a size Dan thinks he can work with. The shirt is a little farther out of his comfort zone– a bright yellow tee with a little pixel charmander on it. With a heavy sigh, he peels his wet clothes off and pulls on the replacements. The shirt is soft, if a little snug and garishly bright everytime he catches a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye. He hesitates for a moment, then tugs the hoodie on as well. It’s chilly today, afterall, and Phil did give it to him. The fabric at the cuffs is pilled and the fuzz on the inside has been well worn enough to become soft again.

Hands slipped in the pouch of the hoodie, he makes his way back to the bunker, where everyone’s still shouting about something. It’s certainly not as peaceful a workplace as Dan had envisioned when he thought about working at a garden. Phil catches his eye and nods towards the door. He leads him to a small, empty classroom, setting his bag down on one of the desks and pulling out a little canvas bag. 

Dan watches as Phil pulls out a bag of grapes, a tupperware of spaghetti, a package of crisps, and a bag with three cookies and suddenly feels stupidly self conscious of his singular ziplock bag with a shoddily constructed ham sandwich. He takes a seat and pulls out his sandwich, carefully pressing it back into a more sandwich-like shape. If he weren’t so starving, he’d probably chuck it straight in the bin, but he feels like he could eat ten sandwiches right now, even if it’s only 11:30.

“Is that all you brought?” 

Dan looks up at Phil, mortified, but he just looks genuinely concerned, the thoughtful git. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t really anticipate doing so much manual labor.”

“Here,” Phil says, tossing the crisps onto his desk and reaching into the bag of grapes to rip off a bunch.

“No, no, that’s alright. It’s your lunch.”

“I’ve got way too much, honestly. I went home this weekend and my mum sent me back with like a month’s worth of leftovers. I swear she thinks I’d starve if she didn’t feed me. I mean, I would eat a lot of cereal and takeaway, but that’s kept me going so far, right?” Throughout this, Phil had placed the grapes on a napkin and handed them over to Dan and even gone as far to break one of his biscuits in half so they each have one and a half. Who is this strange, talkative man, and why is he the nicest person Dan’s ever met?

“I love food. It’s, like, my number one passion in life. Feeding me is probably the fastest way to earn my love, so,” Dan says before he can think, then shoves a handful of crisps in his mouth. He doesn’t dare look at Phil in the ensuing quiet, but then Phil laughs.

“Noted.”

Dan sits in silence, clad in Phil’s clothes and eating Phil’s lunch, trying to make sense of how his life seems to have transformed so dramatically in the last four hours. For the past month since he found out he failed his resits and had to take the leave of absence, he’s been sitting in his room playing video games and wasting endless hours scrolling through the internet. He often went days without speaking to another human, and when he did it was mostly half-hearted conversations with his mum or his flatmates. The people he knew from his program and his hall last year had started out still texting him to hang out, but they’d quickly learned not to bother.

He would probably still be asleep if this were any other day, but he’s already met three new people, been essentially fired from the job he thought he was showing up for and then hired for a completely different one he has no training for, planted a bunch of hostas, learned what hostas are, and spent three of those four hours with a stranger who has now opted to spend even more time with him. A kind, funny, maybe somewhat gay stranger who seems to get a little cuter every time Dan looks at him. Not that he’s looking for anything right now. Even if Phil does like guys, Dan doesn’t think that starting something with his only semi-normal coworker at his only job prospect is a very good idea.

Is this what normal, working life is like? Dan wonders how people do it, because he’s only gotten thought half a day and he’s already ready to crawl back in bed and sleep for good 20 hours. He’d thought uni was exhausting, and it was of course. The constant pressure of assignments and exams and saying smart things in class wore on him steadily, until he never felt like there was a single moment in the day that he wasn’t procrastinating something that needed to be done. This, though, is a whole new kind of exhaustion, and he feels tired just considering making it through the rest of the day without a nap or the chance to zone out alone for a few hours, not being able to just push it off and finish the task in a caffeine-fueled frenzy at the last possible second. That’s how Dan’s learned to operate, and he’s not sure if he’s cut out for this whole 9 to 5– or 8 to 4– thing, if he’s being perfectly honest. For example, he should probably be actually talking to the coworker who very politely asked to have lunch with him instead of zoning out.

“Are the others going to join us?” As soon as he says it, he wishes he could draw the words back into his mouth. Not that Alice and Nina don’t seem very nice, in their own ways, but he doesn’t think he can handle their energy right now.

“Oh, no. Probably not. We tend to mostly eat lunches separately. Nina mostly eats while she works, I think Alice eats outside or in one of the greenhouses, and I don’t really know where Polly or John eat. But I can go see if they want to join–”

“No, no. That’s okay. This is fine.”

“Okay. I usually come in here to get some quiet, honestly. I’m an introvert and working here can get a little much sometimes, as fun as it is.” 

Dan feels his shoulders loosen a bit. “Yeah, I totally get that. If you want me to get out of your way–”

“No!” Phil practically shouts. He seems to immediately regret his outburst, though it floods Dan with a rush of gratitude, letting out an awkward half laugh. “I mean, it’s fine. It’s kind of nice to have someone to eat with, even if we’re just sitting here.” 

Dan nods, holding out the crisp packet to offer some to Phil. “I’m an introvert too, so if you ever want to just sit in silence, that’s a special skill of mine.”

“Good to know,” Phil chuckles. Dan likes the way Phil just smiles at all the idiotic things Dan says, and he likes the way he says stupid shit too and gets a little flustered and just keeps talking and making things worse, and he especially likes that sheepish laugh, but these are things Dan already decided he shouldn’t be thinking.

“Did you go to York?” he asks to divert his attention, gesturing down at the hoodie he’s got on.

“Yep, for both degrees.”

“Impressive,” Dan says, even though he has no idea if either of the programs Phil mentioned earlier are any good at York. It’s something people always said to him when he told them he was studying law and Manchester, and he always hated it. “What brought you up here?”

“I’m from just a bit north of Manchester. Rawtenstall. I came home after I graduated for a while, because the only job offer I got was for editing porn and I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell my mum that. I did a little freelancing, and eventually got a job making a video for the garden. They liked it and needed some help with their website, so I did that, and eventually they just hired me on permanently. I’m supposed to be implementing a strategic marketing plan, but don’t tell anyone I don’t actually know how to do that.” Phil does that almost but not quite winking thing again, and Dan accidentally lets out one of his real, barking laughs.

“As long as you don’t tell them I’ve never planted something in my life before today.”

“Deal, though I think that cat’s out of the bag. But really, don’t worry about it too much. I was such a disaster when I first came here whenever they asked me to do anything with the plants. You can’t be worse than me.”

“I don’t know if that’s reassuring or not, considering some of the things I heard.” Phil sticks his tongue out when Dan says this, and he feels his heart give a little flutter, the traitor. “Okay, it’s been killing me, how did you set your gloves on fire? After you soaked me I reckon I deserve the story.”

“Look, it wasn’t my fault. I told them they shouldn’t have given me the flame-weeder. Nina thought it would be funny.”

“What the fuck is a flame-weeder?” Dan asks, stomach dropping. No one told him gardening included fire.

“A failed experiment. Don’t worry, we got rid of it. It turns out none of us should be trusted with flames. It did make weeding the carrots a lot easier though.”

Dan spends the rest of their lunch hour laughing at the increasingly absurd stories of how Phil had fucked up in his first few months. Alice finally has to come to collect him, and Dan blushes furiously through an apology that she waves off. He still hasn’t figured out what it is that loses her favor, but he’s not keen to learn, so he follows after with a quick wave to Phil.

She leaves him with Nina, who tells him he looks ‘cozy’ with a grin he does not trust, and sets him up at the large sinks in the back with instructions to scrub the plant pots until they’re ‘sparkling.’ He doesn’t go quite as far as that, and he does wind up nearly as wet as he’d been this morning, but he makes a pretty impressive dent in the dirty stack and gets to listen to music while he works. All in all, it’s a pretty– well, interesting first day, but maybe a good one. 

Definitely good, he thinks, as Phil pops his head in at 4 to say goodbye.

***

Dan wakes up to vibrations shaking his pillow, and his first thought is how is it already the next morning? He flexes his arm experimentally to try to grab his phone to shut the alarm off and immediately gives up, his muscles screaming in protest just over the thought of moving. That’s it. He’s going to have to call in sick his second day, or possibly just not show up because he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to pick up his phone again. In which case, he should just maybe never go back.

At some point during his pity party his phone had stopped buzzing, which come to think of it is a little strange, because he had set his alarm as the most obnoxious song he could think of. And actually, his room’s a lot brighter than it had been yesterday morning, when he’d woken up at the godforsaken hour of 6:30, because apparently gardeners hate sleeping. A seemingly important thought is nagging him, struggling to press through the fog of his lingering drowsiness, but all he can seem to manage is a vague disorientation and an ache that seems to have left no centimeter of his body untouched. 

Until his phone buzzes again and he realizes it’s ringing, not his alarms going off, and all of a sudden he remembers collapsing onto his bed and promising himself he’d get up in 15 minutes, but not getting up or setting any alarms before he obviously passed out cold like a complete idiot. And if the sun’s out– shit. Shitshitshit. 

He’s up and on his feet, then nearly on the floor as his legs threaten to give out under him, but he makes it to his dresser and is halfway though yanking off his filthy jeans– no, Phil’s jeans– when he answers.

“Daniel?”

“Mum?” His mind shudders to a halt and for a wild moment, he thinks the garden has called his mum to tell her he didn’t show up for his second day of work. 

“So, how was your first day?”

“Uh–” He teeters and puts his other foot back on the ground, then pulls the phone away from his face and stares down at it. 7:30. PM. Right. “It was fine.”

“Just fine? What did you do?” Her voice is distant, and he remembers he should bring the phone back to his ear. Mostly he just wants to go back to sleep, but the rest of his brain is catching up with him, and he realizes he’s starving. He taps speakerphone and starts walking to the kitchen, thankful none of his flatmates seem to be in the common spaces. 

“Just normal garden stuff, I guess,” he says, opening the cupboard. After a quick scan, he realizes cereal is really his only option. He’s going to need to get some more substantial food. “Planted some hostas. Washed some of those pot thingies.” He’s got a bowl full of cereal and is going for the milk before he realizes his mum hasn’t responded. “Mum? You still there?”

“Yep, still here.” She’s not quite laughing, but it’s clear it’s taking quite a lot of effort to keep it in. “You planted hostas? Like live hostas?”

“As opposed to dead hostas?” he snaps. This whole new thing where they talk regularly and get along and rib each other like mates is great and all, except when he’s dead exhausted and ready to collapse. He’d done a fine job, mostly.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just a bit of a surprise. I thought you said you were working at the café.”

“Well, yeah, that’s what I thought. Apparently it’s more of a general position. I’ll be in the café sometimes.” Rarely, and not until May is what they had actually said, but if she’s going to mock him she doesn’t get that information.

“Oh.”

“What?” he asks through a mouthful of cereal.

“Well… do you think that will be okay? You’ve never really had much of a green thumb. The only thing you ever kept alive at all was your hamster and we all know that didn’t–”

“Mum! I really appreciate the vote of confidence, but I’ll be fine. They’re hostas. They’re not going to die if I planted them wrong.” Right? He’s not sure, but his mum isn’t exactly a master gardener either, so hopefully this sounds reasonable enough for her to drop it. He makes a mental note to ask Phil about the fragility of hostas tomorrow, and sets his bowl in the sink with a clatter. 

“You’re right, Daniel, I’m sorry. You’re a very bright boy, I’m sure you’ll do a great job.” She sounds sincere, perhaps overly so, and she sounds careful, and Dan is reminded that there’s this new limit now.

He’s still starving, but he doesn’t feel like eating anymore. Instead, he heads back for his room, nodding at Liam as he passes him in the hall, and faceplants onto his bed. He should get up. He needs to get up and take a shower and eat some sort of food so his stomach doesn’t cave in on itself, and he should probably set out clothes for tomorrow morning and pack a lunch.

This time he at least remembers to set his alarms before passing out cold on top of the covers, still wearing Phil’s dirty jeans.

***

The next time he wakes up it’s to his blaring alarm, but he doesn’t feel any better rested or less like he’s been run over by a lorry. He hits snooze five times before Liam’s pounding on his door, telling him to shut that racket off and asking if he can take the shower. This gets him out of bed like a shot, begging Liam to give him ten minutes in the bathroom. Phil had told him yesterday that there’s no need to wear clean jeans every day, but he doubts showing up unshowered would go over well. 

His suspicions are confirmed when Liam doubles over upon seeing him, laughing too hard to get any words out for a few seconds. He finally manages to straighten up and asks, “Rough first day?” Dan just flips him off as he pushes past him on his way to the bathroom. As he’s shutting the door, Liam adds, “Don’t be late! Aunty Alice hates tardiness.”

Dan’s not sure how true this is, but having witnessed her fondness of cheerfully berating employees, he’s not keen to find out. A quick glance in the mirror has him feeling a bit bad for flipping Liam off. His hair is an absolute bird’s nest and he’s got a smudge of dirt across half of one of his cheeks. He’s also still very clearly in his– or Phil’s– work clothes, which are badly wrinkled and dirtier than they have any right to be considering he was just washing the pots all afternoon. He strips them off and dumps them on the floor, resolving to do laundry that night so he can get them back to Phil.

The shower feels glorious and it takes somewhat more than ten minutes to drag himself out of it, leaving him only about ten minutes to finish getting ready and sort out breakfast and a lunch to bring with him. He quickly digs through his drawers to find a t-shirt that’s not too blatantly nerdy and another pair of jeans that still fit him– a difficult feat after his winter of squirrelling away in his room, playing video games and subsisting entirely off of doritos and takeaway. He eventually finds a suitable outfit and gets his hair as straight as it’s going to get in the limited time, running back out to the kitchen with negative two minutes before he was supposed to leave. If he speeds a bit he might still make it.

Unfortunately, the cupboards hadn’t magically restocked themselves overnight, and he’s still got nothing to eat. He briefly weighs the shit he’ll get for being a terrible flatmate against the shame of bringing in another lone ham sandwich, then grabs two cereal bars, an apple, and a tin of some sort of unidentified curry takeaway, none of which he purchased.

He speeds and gets there 5 minutes late anyway, and makes himself even later as he gets lost in the maze of hallways trying to find his way back to the bunker. He finally finds it, panting and clutching his lunch items to his chest, and is greeted with the sight of Alice, Nina, Phil, another woman who by process of elimination must be Polly, and a man who indeed looks strikingly like Chris Hemsworth, only in cargo pants and an incredibly dorky sun hat.

“You’re back! We were taking bets on whether we’d scared you off yet,” Alice says, winking as she takes a sip of her coffee from a mug stamped with several cacti and the phrase ‘surrounded by pricks.’

“Uh, no,” Dan says trying to breathe through his nose and subtly rearrange his pilfered lunch items. “Not yet. Or– sorry I’m late.”

“Oh, that’s fine,” she says breezily with a wave of her hand. “Time’s a social construct. The great thing about plants is they’re here any time of the day. We really just start this early to avoid the worst of the sun. Or because we’re masochists. Speaking of, I really dig the whole child of the night vibe you’ve got going on, but you might want to reconsider the pallette.” 

“What?”

“She’s saying she respects your emo lifestyle, but black absorbs sunlight, and in a few weeks you’re going to be baking yourself out in the gardens,” Nina translates. Dan wonders if every morning is going to start with a commentary on his outfit.

“Dan,” Phil breaks in, elbowing Nina subtly as he stands, “This is John, our arborist. And Polly, who runs the database and the seed exchange.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.” Dan shakes each of their hands, wincing a bit as John squeezes his new blisters. 

“Hi, Dan. Alice tells me you’re going to be helping me out today.”

“Oh, okay. Sounds, uh, good. Great,” he adds, trying not to sound too intimidated. He thinks he probably wasn’t too successful, if the snicker he catches Phil and Nina sharing is anything to go by. John just smiles his disarmingly white, straight-toothed smile and tells Dan to follow him. He shows Dan the refrigerator where he can store his lunch, kindly not commenting on its contents, then leads him back to the storage closet to get clippers, loppers, a hand saw, and kneeling pads. He also very patiently explains what all of those things are when Dan just stares at him blankly. He offers an extra sunhat too, but Dan doesn’t think his dignity would survive that. John pulls it off in a way Dan’s confident he never could.

It turns out the garden uses little electric buggies to drive around, and John lets him drive it when he notices Dan’s excitement, directing him on a tour of the grounds before he has Dan pull up beside a group of tall bushes. He shows Dan how to tell that they’re overgrown, and what branches to cut to make sure it stays healthy and looks good. Once they’re done, John drives them over to a stand of small trees by the pond and explains how to remove limbs and why they do it.

Dan probably only retains 10% of it, but anytime he makes a mistake, John points it out so gently that Dan doesn’t mind much at all. It takes him much longer to get all the way through the branch, but John just tells him he’s doing great. He can’t help but wonder, as he saws through his third branch with shaking arms, what it would be like to have a professor this encouraging. 

It’s lunch time, all of a sudden, and Dan has no idea where the time went until he tries to get back out of the buggy and his body remembers acutely every second he spent working. John just laughs and gives him a hand up, carrying all the tools for him and telling to go grab lunch before he falls over, and Dan’s only a little embarrassed. 

He heats his curry in the microwave, chatting with Nina about their research as he waits. He doesn’t understand it at all, but their enthusiasm feels nice. Phil’s not in the classroom yet when he gets there, so he settles into a desk and peels open the cereal bar he hadn’t eaten this morning. About halfway through the bar, Phil comes in with a wide grin.

“So?” Phil asks, plopping himself down at the desk next to Dan’s. “What’d you think?”

“Of what? The trees?”

“No.” Phil rolls his eyes and sends Dan a playful glare as he sets out his lunch, exactly the same as yesterday’s. He follows the same protocol as yesterday, handing over half of his grapes, though this time he just dumps the chips in between them on a napkin and gives them each two biscuits. All Dan can do is nod his thanks, not trusting himself to say anything about it. “Of John.” 

“Oh.” Dan weighs his options for a split second, but Phil’s hopeful grin is something he finds himself reluctant to discourage. “Totally dreamy. Very Thor. Plus he saved some baby birds whose nest I accidentally cut out of a bush, so he won ‘cares for baby animals’ points too.” Dan hopes the slight shake to his voice isn’t too obvious, but Phil just laughs and takes a bite of his pasta.

“I did the same thing when I started! Don’t feel too bad, I think he has to do that like twice a month in the spring. How was the rest of it?”

“Um, exhausting, honestly. I don’t think I can lift my arms above my shoulders anymore.”

“Yeah, that’s normal too. Don’t worry, I think you’re on pot washing duty again this afternoon.”

“Cheers. I never thought I’d be so excited to scrub dirt off of ceramic pots, but here we are.” Phil lets out a quiet laugh, staring intently down at his pasta. 

“I could– I mean if you want I can see if Alice would let you work with me sometimes. I’ve got a couple of projects I’ve been wanting to work on that take another person, and Nina’s the only one who has any idea how to even hold a camera, but they refuse to be filmed at all.” This honestly sounds like the best offer he’s gotten in a while, but he tries to temper his response a bit.

“Yeah, that sounds like it could be cool. I don’t really know much about filming though.”

“Hasn’t stopped you so far, has it?” He knows Phil’s just referring to his taking this job with no experience, but it feels like a deeper dig, accidently jabbing at Dan’s fear that he’s never really put in an honest effort to get good at something new since he was a child, sore from years of prodding. “And I can totally teach you, if you’re interested, but mostly I’d just need you to stand in front of the camera and say some things about the gardens.” 

He’s best at saying no, has years of experience, but Phil’s enthusiasm is infectious. “I can do that, I think. I did do drama back in secondary school.”

“Who knew we had a celebrity among us!” Coming from anyone else it might sound like an insult, but Phil sounds genuinely excited, so Dan just lets himself grin back.

“I wouldn’t go that far. But yeah, as long as it’s okay with Alice, I’d love to. How’d you get into editing and filming and all that stuff?” Dan listens happily for the rest of lunch as Phil describes his childhood horror films and the videos he used to make for his friends and family, both in and out of school. They compare favorite films, which slides into shows and music and games they like, and find a striking amount of overlap.

They part ways and Dan spends the afternoon washing pots again. They seem to have respawned overnight, the piles just as large if not larger than they had been yesterday. But it’s easy and peaceful, and he manages to spray himself a little bit less this time. Phil pops in again to wave goodbye, and Nina’s smirk tells him that it’s a new habit. 

He tells himself on the way home he’s definitely going to do a load of laundry, go shopping, and do some meal prepping, but by the time he gets there he only has the energy to endure a lecture from Joe about stealing food before collapsing face first on his bed. After an entirely purposeful micro-nap, he gets back up long enough to eat three bowls of cereal and take a shower. If he bathes at night, that leaves him more time to strategically steal his flatmate's food for lunch tomorrow, he figures. And then he’ll definitely go shopping after work.

***

The rest of his first week passes in much the same way, with Dan just barely managing to drag his increasingly aching body out of bed, throwing together some semblance of a lunch, and speeding the entire way to work to get there more or less on time. Thankfully, Alice seems to stand by her denunciation of the concept of time, and he doesn’t get in trouble, unless she’s tasking him with increasingly demanding jobs on purpose. He spends the entire day on Wednesday sorting the tool closet and chasing down missing tools that had been checked out and never returned. He has lunch alone that day, as Phil gets intercepted by Polly, requesting he finish updating some form for database immediately. 

On Thursday Alice claims he needs to spend some more quality time with the plants, so he passes the morning dragging giant potted shrubs all over the grounds while she decides where they would look best. By the end he’s positive that at least the last 30 minutes were just Alice messing with him, but she gives him one of the ice creams she’s got hidden in the back of the freezer so it’s not all bad. He manages a 20 minute lunch with Phil before Nina comes to drag him off for ‘propagating,’ which apparently consists of cutting plants into little pieces, scraping a bit of the stem off the end, dipping them in a white powder, and jabbing them in some soil. Nina tells him that most of his probably won’t make it since he has no idea what he’s doing, and he considers if he’s not being led on a wild goose chase again, but at least this time he’s allowed to sit down. In the end, they tell him he didn’t do a terrible job and he decides to take that as glowing praise. 

Joe had threatened to steal his laptop if Dan took any more of his food, so Dan stops at the store on his way home. He still hasn’t quite mastered the art of cooking, so he mostly buys cereal and cereal bars, pasta and tinned sauce, and ingredients for sandwiches. And then, because he’s starving and has no impulse control, he adds a few bags of crisps, doritos, and biscuits. It’s not exactly a trolly his mother would be proud of, but at least he’s feeding himself. 

When he gets home, he makes five sandwiches and sets one on a separate plate with a stack of biscuits. He leaves the plate and a bag of the crisps outside Joe’s bedroom door along with a quick knock, before heading to his room to inhale the remaining four sandwiches and half the bag of doritos while watching a few episodes of one of the animes Phil had suggested to him. He winds up liking it more than he’d anticipated and must accidentally fall asleep, because he wakes up the next morning with his face pressed against the keyboard.

In his panic to get out the door, this time unshowered with just a heavy coat of deodorant and dry shampoo, he forgets to pack a lunch, only realizing when he goes to grab it as he’s leaving his car. Feeling grimy, starving, and ready for the day to be over, he heads into the building with a rain cloud over his head and literal clouds darkening with every step. Alice seems to sense his mood and tells him to sort through seed packets and take out any expired ones, or any he thinks would be fun to plant in the teaching garden, then lets him be. 

Dan spends the morning listening to Muse and learning that there are at least 30 types of tomatoes. When he says this to Nina, they snort and call him an idiot because apparently he should have known there are over 15,000 known varieties. He spends half an hour counting as he pretends to go through the seeds packets and decides he’s eaten four, maybe five in his life. Phil comes in for a cup of coffee around 10:30– he seems to favor the ‘plants enjoy light snacks’ one– and asks cautiously how Dan’s doing.

“Fine. Although apparently I’m an idiot for not knowing that there are five million different kinds of tomatoes.”

“Fifteen thousand,” Nina says without looking up from their work.

“Oh, well, I mean, come on Dan, you should have known that. What about some other vegetables? Can you name all the different kinds of celery? There’s regular celery–” Phil recites in a near perfect Phoebe impression. Nina tries to tell them the actual answer, probably, but Dan’s too busy crying from laughter to hear.

Once they’ve gotten themselves under control again, Phil offers to make Dan a cup of coffee and settles onto the stool next to Dan’s when he’s done, flipping through the packs of seeds Dan’s set aside and making up stupid facts about them. It’s Phil’s confident assertion that Golden Boy celery was named after the Golden Gate Bridge that finally sends Nina out of the room, muttering about stupid nerds who think they’re funnier than they actually are.

Dan takes a sip of his coffee when he’s stopped laughing again and contemplates the mug. “Who is responsible for these monstrosities?” He asks, displaying the cartoon of an upside down potted plant dancing on a lighted dance floor with plants plants revolution written underneath.

“You don’t like them?”

“They’re terrible.”

“I picked out most of them.”

“They’re terrible. Like really, I don’t even know if I want to be friends anymore.”

“We’re friends?” They stare at each other for a moment, each clearly having said something they didn’t really mean to speak aloud.

“Yeah,” Dan says, voice a bit croaky. 

“Cool.”

“I hate to break up this touching moment,” Nina says loudly, ignoring Dan’s shriek and Phil knocking over his mug and drenching several of the seed packets in the dregs of his coffee, “but Alice told me to tell you that if you’re in a better mood, you can plant the seeds you picked out after lunch. I told her not to worry about your mood.”

“It’s raining,” Dan replies, hiding his blush behind the stupid mug and nearly spitting out the lukewarm coffee.

“Not anymore. Sun came out.”

“I don’t know how to plant things. And I also don’t think I should actually be put in charge of designing a garden.”

“I can–” Phil starts.

“You absolutely cannot be in charge of designing the teaching garden, I’m not having kids help me weed a dick shaped carrot bed this summer. Besides, Alice told me to make sure you get back to work. The website needs to be updated so we can open registration for the summer workshops. I’m supervising Dan.”

“Fine,” Phil pouts.

“She wants it done now.”

“But it’s lunchtime.”

“Yeah, and you just took an hour long coffee break.” 

“But–”

“It’s fine,” Dan cuts in. “I’m sorry for distracting you, you should get back to work. I forgot my lunch anyway, so–”

“But you have to eat! I’ve got a ton today, I can give you some of mine.”

“I’ve been eating half your lunch all week, I don’t want to keep stealing your food.” Dan hears the irritation in his voice and he hates that it’s there, and especially hates that it’s there because Nina is watching.

“I don’t mind.” 

“Honestly, I’m not really hungry.”

“I know I’ve only known you like four days, but I feel like I should be worried.”

“It’s fine, I just had a big breakfast. And I’m too exhausted to eat.”

“If–”

“Oh my God, mum!” Nina interrupts. “I’ll make sure he eats, alright? Go back to your office. Registration’s supposed to open in 24 minutes. You can’t keep the old people from their bird watching!”

With one last doubtful glance at Dan, Phil finishes mopping up his spilled coffee and heads out.

“Well, are we gonna get started?”

“You don’t want lunch? I don’t mind sharing, I brought a ton. And Alice has always got a few extra frozen meals tucked away in the freezer for emergencies.”

“I’d rather just get started.”

“Alright, Mr. Grumpy Pants. You’d better watch your attitude or it’s going to start raining on us again.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Go get the seedlings flats in greenhouse 5 and bring them to the teaching garden.”

“Seedlings?”

“Yeah, we already started everything. They’d take too long to grow from seed if we just put ‘em in the ground now.”

“So why was I sorting those seeds all morning? And what are you going to be doing while I do all the work?”

“Watch it! I know we’re all about workplace banter here, but I am in charge of you, you know. I’m going to be eating lunch, like a normal person who wants to regulate my blood sugar and not be such a moody toddler, and then I’m going to grab the tools and meet you out there. You can do whatever the fuck you like until I get out there, alright?” She seems to take his silence as confirmation. “Great. See if you can find your good mood while you’re over there. Maybe Phil took it with him.”

He knows if he says anything now, he’s just going to say something even stupider, so he heads towards the greenhouses. It’s obvious even to him that he’s being irrational, and Nina’s probably right that a snack make him feel better, but he’s entrenched enough in his sour mood that he doesn’t want to admit it. The clouds look as dark as they did this morning as he makes his way through the greenhouses, and if he slams a few doors on his way, no one’s around to scold him for it.

When he gets to the right greenhouse, he’s ready to fume about not knowing what seedlings he’s supposed to be grabbing, but he stops short when he takes in the scene in front of him. On top of one of the tables of flats someone– Phil– has written ‘these ones :)’ and placed his bag of crisps and apple. He knows he should probably feel grateful or touched or embarrassed, but his first instinct is to be mad that he can't be mad anymore. Rolling his eyes at himself, he takes a bite from the apple and sticks the crisps in this pouch of his hoodie.

It takes him a few trips to move the flats out to the raised beds that make up the teaching garden, but that still gives him plenty of time to moodily eat his chips and play a few levels of his current phone game obsession before Nina comes out to join him. They’re carrying a bucket in one hand and a piece of cake on a paper plate in the other.

“It’s leftover from my birthday last weekend,” they say as they hand it over.

“Thanks. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks. Sorry I yelled.”

“Sorry I was being an idiot.”

“It happens,” they say with a shrug. “Eat your cake while I lay out the seedlings.” Dan watches as they move around the beds, depositing seedlings in careful rows, pausing every once in a while to consider or rearrange.

“How did you get so into plants?”

“Do you want to know the quick, stupid version, or the long complicated version?”

“How long’s it going to take to plant all of these?”

“The short story is I took a horticulture class in uni, and thought it was cool as hell that flowers are called perfect when they have both male and female reproductive parts. The long version involves me realizing that’s a really stupid reason to switch your major halfway through, failing a shit ton of plant identification tests, managing to graduate somehow anyway, and deciding to just double down and get a PhD because it turns out no one wants to hire someone with a B.A. in biology.”

“But you love it?”

“I guess so. Some days more than others.”

“Of course you do. No one memorizes celery types just for the hell of it.”

They lets out a sharp, barking laugh that Dan can’t help but admire. “I was fucking with you, I’ve seen Friends before.”

“Whatever. The point is, it’s cool that you know what you want to do.”

“What’re you,” they ask, leveling Dan with a look that makes him squirm, “22?”

“21.”

“Just 21? You’re an actual baby. You’ve got so much time to figure all this shit out.”

“I guess. I should probably get it at least a little bit sorted before it’s too late to change courses, though,” Dan says, picking at a clump of dirt. Nina gestures towards the seedlings and tosses him a trowel, which he pointedly steps out of the way of before retrieving it from the ground.

“You’re in uni now?”

“Well, obviously not right now. I’m, uh, taking a little time off.”

“Okay. What are you taking time off from?”

“Law.” They wrinkle their nose and Dan finds himself laughing, shoulders loosening under the warm touch of the sun finally emerging from behind the clouds.

“Right. I see the problem. Well, is there anything you love? Besides Phil, I mean?”

“Shut up!” Dan says immediately, whipping around to make sure Phil’s not standing right behind them. “I don’t. We’re friends.”

“Yeah, I heard. That was adorable. But really, what makes you want to fail a bunch of tests and keep going anyway.”

“Well, I failed a bunch of law tests.”

“But you’re here, not there, right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I love anything like that.”

“That’s fine, that means you’ve just got to find it.”

“Right, like that’s so easy.”

“None of it’s easy, Dan. Don’t think it’s going to be easy. Some of it can just be fun.” Nina lets a silence fall between them as they continue to work and Dan thinks that over. Is there something that makes him happy. His brain instantly supplies him an image of Phil’s grinning face, and he wants to kick Nina for planting that idea, and also himself for being the one so smitten after just a few days.

He tries again, but only manages to think about Skyrim, which isn’t exactly a viable career path either. Shaking his head, he lets himself sink into the work of digging his hands down into the dirt and scooping out a little divet to tuck the plant into. Nina works without gloves or a trowel and he’d decided to follow suit. The earth is moist and cool and it takes Dan a few minutes, but eventually he decides he likes the feel of it squishing between his fingers. Until he accidentally squishes a worm and flings it, screaming, directly into Nina’s face.

This leads to a dirt fight with lots of squealing and yelling that brings a half disgruntled, half amused looking Alice over to investigate.

“Working hard, are we?”

“Dan started it!”

Dan opens his mouth to protest, but thinks better of it. “Sorry, it was my fault.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m glad to see you feeling better. And the seedlings all planted. You are going to have to clean up all this mud though.”

Dan leans over to start picking up the chunks of dirt he’d doged and comes face to face with a gorgeous, grey and white speckled cat.

“Oh, hello there,” he coos, holding out a hand for sniffing. She stares at his dirt-covered hand with disdain for a moment before leaning forward to rub against his leg, letting out a low purr. “You’re gorgeous, aren’t you?”

“That’s Pepper,” Alice says from somewhere behind him. “She hunts the voles.”

“And the birds,” Nina grumbles. “Some of which are endangered.”

“Not the birds. We have an understanding.”

“I’ve found three bird carcasses already this month! Your understanding is rubbish.”

“We’re working on it!”

 

“I’ve told you a hundred times, you can’t train a cat. It’s mental! They’re invasive species.” Dan tunes out their argument in favor of petting Pepper, who’s flopped over onto her side, soaking in the attention.

“Dan!”

“What?” Dan jerks to his feet, turning to face Alice.

“I was just saying it looks nice, you two did a good job. And that it might be nice to add an extra few feet to the kitchen garden to plant all those extra seedlings we have leftover. The grass should be perfect tomorrow.”

“No,” Nina says immediately.

“You don’t have to do it. That’s what Dan’s for.”

“Do what?”

“Run,” Nina whispers. Alice smacks them on the arm with her pair of gloves.

“Don’t listen to them. We’re going to teach you how to scrape sod. It’ll be fun.”

“Have fun dying,” Nina snorts. They clap him on the back and his entire body already feels like one giant bruise, so he can’t even begin to imagine what fresh hell tomorrow holds.

***

The next morning is overcast and dreary, just like every other fucking morning since the dawn of time. Or November, same difference. He’s actually running on time for once, since he showered after the dirt fight and prepped his lunch ahead of time. The feeling that he’s starting to get a hang of this whole adulting thing only lasts until he pours a a big glob of congealed sour milk onto his cereal. Hadn’t he just bought this two days ago?

It feels like his renewed bad mood follows him like a shadow into work, darkening the hallways and chilling the air. Nina takes one look at him as he enters the office and immediately turns and leaves the room. Alice, unfortunately, is not as easily deterred. She tells him to go grab a flat edged shovel and a tarp and to meet her out by the kitchen garden. He still doesn’t know exactly what scraping sod is, but he figures anything with scraping in the name can’t be good. 

As soon as Alice starts explaining the process of chopping through the thick mat of grass and peeling it up, Dan realizes he’d been underestimating the task. Alice makes it look difficult but doable, but he has to fully jump on the shovel to get through. This is apparently enough to convince Alice he’s ready to fly solo, so she heads off with a wink and a reminder of the area he’s supposed to clear. It’s only about 3 square meters, but with the new knowledge of the effort it took just to cut through one section of grass, it feels about the size of a football pitch. Dan’s not really sure how big that is either, but he knows it’s too big to be doing this shit.

With nothing else to do, he puts his earbuds in and gets to work. He checks his phone regularly, each time expecting an hour to have passed in what is actually only ten or 15 minutes. It doesn’t get any easier as he goes either, still not having figured out a secret technique that peels the grass up easily and teetering more on the shovel as his arms and legs begin to burn. The weather does nothing to improve his mood, hovering somewhere between just cloudy and actually raining, the mist clinging to his clothes and curling his hair, but not enough to justify him coming in. He thinks, for probably the 50th time this week, about quitting. 

This is not the job he signed up for. It’s not one he’s qualified for either. Would anyone really begrudge him quitting? Would he care if they did? He gave it an honest effort. A longer one than anyone seems to have been expecting. He sees the glances Alice, Nina, and John throw him sometimes, especially when he’s struggling with a basic task. They’re probably wondering why he’s still here, or thinking how much faster they could do the job. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been fired only because he’s been doing things the rest of them would rather have done badly by someone else than do themselves.

He imagines what his life would be like if he was working in a cafe right now, picturing the strong, bitter scent of coffee all around him as he learns to make drinks and sneaks bites of pastries. He pictures scalding burns as he fucks up drink orders and pissy customers yelling at him. Even that sounds better right now, to be honest. He lets his mind wander further and tries to picture a job he would actually like, but can’t come up with anything past video game tester. Maybe he could just find a rich person to marry and be a trophy husband? That doesn’t involve cooking or cleaning, right? Though even if it does, he thinks he could probably figure it out.

“Hey!”

Dan shrieks and jumps, dropping his shovel and spinning around to find Phil standing in front of him, hands behind his back. Fantasies of perfectly prepared five-course meals drop from his head and he returns to the reality of all of the grass still exactly where it was. 

“I was just taking a break.”

“Okay,” Phil says with a smirk. “I just wanted to bring you something.” He pulls a reusable water bottle out from behind his back and holds it out.

“That’s not mine.”

“I know. I mean, you can have it if you want. It’s an extra one I had. I washed it. I just thought– no one told me when I started that I should be drinking a lot more water than I was used to and I got really dehydrated. I nearly passed out one day and they had to have an intervention.” He chuckles nervously and shakes the water bottle a bit. “When you said you weren’t hungry yesterday I thought maybe– dehydration can make you feel like you’re not hungry when you actually are. It can also, um, make you a little cranky. Not that–”

“It’s fine, I know I’ve been an arse.”

“I’m just saying it’s not your fault! It can be hard to remember to drink enough water when you’re doing all this work. So I thought the water bottle might help.” He gives it another shake, and Dan watches the water slosh, thinking of Phil finding this extra, washing it, and filling it for him.

“Thank you, that’s really, really nice.” He takes the bottle from Phil and takes a pointed swig. He has to stop himself from guzzling the whole thing when he belatedly realizes how thirsty he actually is.

“No problem. Well, should we get back to work?”

“What?”

“Alice sent me out to help you.” God, he could just kiss Phil. Out of gratitude. He notices the extra shovel by Phil’s feet and feels himself beaming.

“You have no idea how amazing that would be. You aren’t secretly a master sod scraper, are you?”

“No, I don’t think anyone is. Except those machines.”

“There are machines that do this?” Dan shrieks, stabbing the shovel down hard enough to break through for the first time this morning. Phil has to pause as he doubles over laughing.

“Yeah, but they’re super expensive. Or so Alice claims. Nina and I have a theory that she thinks doing it by hand builds character.”

“Fuck character. And you know what? Fuck grass, and also fuck gardens. Fuck this stupid mist that’s making my hair look like shit, fuck the weather in general, fuck the winter. Just fuck it alll!”

“I think your hair looks nice.” 

Dan whips around on Phil, and for a moment Phil looks scared. “I look like a hobbit! And I feel like I’ve been trapped in some sort of– hellish snowglobe where it’s only ever cold and cloudy and dreary. How is anyone supposed to be happy like this? Everything’s grey and brown and depressing as hell and you’re just supposed to stay inside and, what, study?” Dan would be spending most of his time inside whether the sun was out or not, but that’s not the point. He’s not 100% what the point is, but it seems important suddenly, and in need of being said. Or shouted. So he carries on.

“Human beings weren’t meant to live in England. It’s a shit hole. I mean really. When’s the last time you saw the sun? We literally need sun. Vitamin D… does something. Something essential! And, like, would it kill the trees to grow some leaves?”

Phil just nods along, looking too frightened to respond, and Dan lets the rage carrying him through getting a few more strips of the grass up. Phil really isn’t much better than he is, but having two weak nerds working inefficiently is still better than one. Their normal lunch time comes and goes and they keep working, deciding they’d rather get the last bit up than have to come back to it after eating. They chat on and off, but work mostly in silence. Phil reminds Dan to drink water every half hour or so, and he’s not sure if it’s the water or the company, but he does start feeling a little better.

“Phil, there you are! What happened to working on the brochure?” Alice calls from across the lawn when they’ve got just one more strip along the edge to pull. Dan turns to Phil to ask what she’s talking about, but Phil’s blush answers his question.

“Sorry,” Phil calls, “I forgot. Let me just–”

“Now!” Alice yells.

“I’ll bring your shovel in, don’t worry about it. Thanks for the help.” 

“Thanks,” Phil whispers before running off to the building. 

Dan finishes the last bit quickly, if not well. He collects the tools and brings them back into the building, passing by Phil hunched over the computer, typing furiously. Guilt swirls in his stomach as he heads to their lunch spot alone. It had been Phil who had decided to help Dan instead of doing his own work, but he can’t help but think if he wasn’t so pathetic, Phil wouldn’t have felt like he needed to.

He finishes his food in just five minutes without Phil to talk to. After killing another 10 on a stupid phone game, he goes to find Alice to ask what he should do now. She shows him where he should plant the rest of the seedlings in the newly scraped garden patch, and tells him to come find her when he’s done so she can help him bring over some mulch to cover it up. Those two tasks take the rest of the afternoon, and by the time he’s done he’s covered in dirt and feels ready to fall over at any moment. And he keeps finding wood chips in little nooks and crannies all over himself.

He just manages to drag himself into the bunker, where Nina is still crouched over a microscope, despite it being nearly half an hour past when they normally go home. Then he makes the mistake of sitting and spends a good 20 minutes watching Nina work in a daze, incapable of standing back up. He’s just about managed to convince himself his legs won’t literally snap in half on the walk to his car when Phil comes trotting in, a little short of breath.

“Oh Dan, you’re still here. Great. Come with me for a second?”

“Phil, not to be rude, but I’m exhausted, my legs have felt like giant rubber bands all week, and I think my foot is more blister than anything else at this point. Unless you’re taking me to a secret bed like two feet away, I’m not going anywhere.” He had meant it to sound playfully joking, but it comes out sharp and impatient and wipes the smile right off Phil’s face. Dan would feel bad if he could just muster the energy.

“Right, sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. Have a good weekend.” He’s gone as quick as he came, and Dan thumps his head down on the counter, groaning.

“Hey,” Nina snaps, “don’t be a dick to Phil. He’s the nicest person on the planet, and he was just trying to cheer you up because you’ve been a grump all week.”

“Oh, because you’re always such a ray of sunshine.”

“I’m charmingly acerbic. You, meanwhile, have been stomping around, whinging and snapping and taking Phil’s kindness for granted. We get it, this work is hard. We all had a first week like yours, so we’re cutting you some slack. Phil was just trying to cheer you up.”

“I am currently uncheerable.”

“Right, because you’re so cool and sad and above it all. Get over yourself and go apologize.” Dan briefly considers just living here now, because Nina told him to leave and he hates being told what to do. And also because he is skeptical that his legs work anymore. But when he closes his eyes again, Phil is there, the look on his face falling as Dan brushes him off playing on a loop designed specifically to torture him.

“He better not have gotten too far,” Dan grumbles sliding elegantly off the side of the stoop and knocking it over in the process.

“Atta boy! I’ll get that, you just go find Phil.” 

Luckily, he doesn’t take too long to find, having not gotten past the row of lockers to collect his jacket.

“Phil?” Phil stops and turns back to face Dan, his smile wide, but missing some of its usual brightness. “I’m sorry about earlier. This is all a lot harder than I was expecting.”

“That’s alright. I’ve been there, trust me. My first week I thought about quitting all the time, and I wasn’t even doing as much outdoor work as you are.”

“It’s not alright though. You’ve been so nice to me and honestly you’re one of the only things getting me out of bed at the moment, so–” He might not have realized just how mortifying of a admission that was if it weren’t for the little squeak Phil lets out. “Um, I just meant, like, getting to talk to you at work makes it a little more bearable, you know. Work, I mean. Yeah. Just– thank you, I guess. And, if you still wanted, I’d love to see what you were going to show me.” Phil’s blushing nearly as much as Dan must be, if the heat radiating off his face is anything to go off of, but his grin slips into something a bit more natural.

“I’d love to. I just, uh, need to catch the last bus. Maybe next week?”

“Yeah, okay. Or– I mean I could give you a ride home if you want. My car’s shitty, but it does run. So far.”

“Really?” Phil’s brightened even more, eyes sparkling a bit in the warm evening light. “That’d be great! Come on then, it’s a bit of a walk, but it shouldn’t be too bad.” Dan bites back a groan and follows Phil out the door and down a path he’s never been on before. It leads them through the field to the left of the building and up to the edge of the little woods, then up and around some sloping hills that make Dan’s legs scream. He stays quiet though, following without question until Phil stops abruptly in front of a small clearing.

Dan’s not sure what he’s supposed to be looking at at first, but then he blinks and a blanket of little white flowers stretches out in front of them. 

“You said you were tired of winter, and I know it’s still really cold and dreary, but springs already happening too, you know? These are some of the first flowers, but it’s only the start. This is a really beautiful place to work in the spring, and if you stick around there’ll be even more cool stuff. There’s–” Phil keeps going but Dan stops listening, bending down to pluck one of the delicate flowers from a clump by his feet.

The flower looks like it’s slouched over, head hung down, but the three white petals are bright and delicate, spreading out and up. The tip of each petal, and the white bit in the center all have little green markings that look a bit like hearts, and Dan doesn’t know whether to smile or throw the stupid thing on the ground. He looks back up at Phil, who’s stopped talking now and is just staring at him, expression soft and open. Dan lets the flower fall from his hand.

“Thank you,” he tries to say, but he has to stop to clear his throat. “Thanks. This is... beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Phil says, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking down at the flowers now. “I just thought you could use a little spring spirit.”

“I definitely could. You’re–” Dan doesn’t know why he started to say that, or how he was going to finish it. Phil is many things, all of them too good and too much for Dan as he is now. Maybe even for the best version of him he might someday be. As if to prove it, Phil doesn’t press, just stands next to Dan as they look out over the dusting of little blooms, daring to exist perhaps before they should.

The rain starts up again slowly, singular drops making it through the leaves above their heads only every few seconds at first. By the time a soft pattering is filling the glade, Dan’s hoodie is covered in dark speckles, but they still haven’t moved. Dan feels rooted to the spot, some looming thought telling him that as soon as they leave it will be lost. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but it’s something he wants to catch in a jar to keep on his bedside table.

It just takes a bit of movement from Dan, and Phil’s turning around and heading back down the path they came from. It’s raining harder than Dan had thought once they reach the edge of the trees, and they silently agree to make a run for it. They’re drenched when they get back to the building anyway, laughing and shaking their heads to spray each other with freezing water droplets. Still not speaking, they gather their things and Phil follows Dan to his car, sprinting again, even though all that does is splatter their legs with mud as they run through the puddles.

Dan turns the heat on as soon as he starts the car, the radio switching on automatically and starting halfway through the Muse CD he’d been listening to on the way into work. Phil mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “Of course you like Muse,” so Dan turns the volume up as he backs out of the spot. His car might be a piece of shit, but the heater and the speakers still work perfectly well, so by the time he gets out on the main road, the car feels like a cozy little cocoon, and they’re singing along to Unnatural Selection. Phil directs him through the city mostly with gestures, and they sing and dance a little, but say almost nothing.

“This is me,” Phil finally says, gesturing at a tall block of apartments. They look much nicer than Dan’s building. “Thanks for the ride.”

“No problem. Anytime.”

“Is it close to yours?”

“Yeah,” Dan lies. It’s not like it’s in the opposite direction, but close would probably be stretch.

“Well… do you want to come up? I don’t really have any food, but we could order in or something. Play some video games or something?”

“Maybe next time,” Dan says, feeling like the world’s biggest prick, and also an idiot. It sounds so nice, and so easy too, a word he would normally never use to describe social interaction. But he’s exhausted and a little overwhelmed still by everything that happened today. “I’m feeling like I’m literally about to fall asleep.”

“Should you drive then? You could–”

“I’ll be okay,” Dan cuts him off before he can offer some other obscenely nice thing. “I promise. I’ll text you when I get home, okay? So you know I didn’t die.” Phil doesn’t respond for a moment, and Dan wonders if that, somehow was too much. Maybe Phil just is a literal angel of a human and none of this is about Dan, he’s just being nice.

“You don’t have my number.”

“Oh.” Jesus, he’s stupid. Of course they’re not–

“Here,” Phil says, interrupting his impending spiral and shoving his phone in Dan’s face. “If I don’t get a text in 20 minutes, I’m calling in Scotland Yard.”

“We’re ages from London, you berk, it would take them longer to get here than it would to just find my car in whatever ditch I’d driven it into.”

“But what if you disappeared under mysterious circumstances? Then we’d need Sherlock to investigate the scene of the crimes and lick the skid marks, or whatever.”

“Didn’t know he was into that, but alright,” Dan manages to get out once he’s stopped laughing. “Is that what you spend your time doing, writing kinky Johnlock smut?”

“What– ew!” Phi squeals when the words finally process, smacking Dan on the arm with his phone. Dan’s worried he’s finally crossed a line and Phil’s going to realize how weird he is, but Phil just dissolves into giggles. “Of course you ship Johnlock.”

“You don’t?” Dan asks, grabbing Phil’s phone and entering his number, pausing before adding a XD after his name in the contact info. Phil laughs when he looks at it and gives Dan another soft smack.

“I guess you’ll just have to find my secret fanfic. Night!” After watching Phil disappear into the building, Dan sits in park for a moment, trying to process that conversation. After a few minutes he gives it up for a lost cause, turning up the music and pulling back onto the street. 

He’s made himself a sandwich and settled in for another episode of the anime Phil suggested when his phone dings.

 _Phil: Are you in a ditch somewhere?_ Dan smiles before tapping out a response.

 _Dan: that’s what they want you to think. time to call in detective holmes and his hunky ‘sidekick’_ Dan grins stupidly at the bubbles that appear almost instantly.

_Phil: =P_

_Phil: if we’re RPing a johnlock murder mystery, I’m going to need to get some wine_ Dan snorts and chokes on bite of his sandwich. It takes him a minute to stop coughing, and in the meantime Phil’s responded again.

_Phil: Sorry, too much?_

_Dan: never_

_Dan: you’re going to have to work harder than that to out freak me_

_Phil: >=)_

_Phil: challenge accepted_

They text on and off the rest of the night as Dan finishes his sandwiches and makes two more. Phil tells him about his pizza and Dan critiques the toppings, then Phil gets very excited that Dan’s watching the anime he suggested and insists on watching an episode at the same time. Dan misses half of the plot glancing down to read text from Phil instead of the subtitles, but he can’t be arsed to care. He’ll watch it again later.

It’s fine. They’re just work mates. Dan looks forward to seeing him so much every morning because work is boring and hard and Phil is funny and likes most of the same stuff he does and makes the dull, day-to-day tasks of running a garden a little more fun. And maybe he’s a bit easy on the eyes. Nina’s cute too, and of course John is unfairly gorgeous, but it’s Phil that Dan’s eyes inevitably seem to snag on, admiring the way his shoulders stretch his t-shirts, or the way his jeans, a bit baggy everywhere else, form tightly against his arse. Or his eyes that Dan takes every opportunity to stare into, after he’d discovered they’re not just blue, but have flecks of gold and green as well. But in a very platonic, respectful, workplace appropriate way. It’s fine. If having a little workplace friendly type fixation on Phil is what it takes to get him through the day, who’s it hurting?

Dan falls asleep with his phone in his hand, halfway through a conversation about who would be more likely to have an inflation kink, John or Moriarty.

***

Dan wakes with a start, not used to the sensation of sunlight on his face in the morning. He turns over and checks the time and feels a quick pulse of adrenaline before he remembers that he’s got two days off and it’s actually way too early for him to be awake. He tries to fall back asleep, but the sun is too bright, and when he gets up to shut his curtains he realizes he has to pee. By the time he’s done that, he’s awake enough to want breakfast, so he gives up entirey. He eats a couple of bowls of cereal while rewatching the episodes Phil had distracted him from last night, then just decides to fuck it and watch the rest. What else does he have to do?

He gets up to stretch when the credits of the last episode start playing and nearly falls over. He’d been an active child but never into sports of any kinds as a teenager, and he had no idea his muscles could hurt this way, or feel so tight. Liam and Joe seem to be either out or still fast asleep, so he decides to take a long, hot shower, filing the whole bathroom with steam by the time he’s done. 

He scrubbed every last centimeter of his body twice and feels fully clean for the first time in days, until he looks down at his hands. No amount of scrubbing seems to be able to get the last of the dirt under his nails out, and he decides it’s time to call his mum.

“How do you get dirt out from under your nails?”

“Hello to you too, my darling son.”

“Mum, really, it’s driving me mad.”

“Are you not cleaning yourself?”

“I just took an hour long show, thank you. Didn’t help.” He props his phone between his cheek and his shoulder and walks out into the kitchen to grab another snack. He sees his new water bottle that he left on the counter and grabs a glass of water too.

“They make little brushes for that, I think. Or you could use a spare toothbrush?”

“You think we have spare toothbrushes lying around?”

“Right, silly me,” his mum laughs. “So, how did the rest of your first week go?”

“Exhausting, honestly. I feel like I’m going to die.”

“How are your tulips?”

“Hostas?”

“Yes, those.”

“Fine. Still very alive.” He’s not really sure they are, but it seems unlikely that they’d already died. “I planted some more things too.”

“Did you?” She asks gamely. “Tell me what you’ve planted.” Dan runs through a list of the things he can remember, and makes some up when he can’t. He seems to be tricking her for a while, but at some point she catches on and laughs. She asks what else he’s done and what his coworkers are like and if he’s been eating enough. He tells her about the new water bottle, though not how he got it, and she tells him about a time she got so dehydrated when she was traveling in India when she was younger that she had to be hospitalized.

Dan goes hoarse laughing at that story, and as she fills him in on her week, he thinks about the fact that they’re able to have this conversation. Up until the school called to tell her about his forced medical leave of absence they talked once every couple of months, if that. They didn’t have a bad relationship, necessarily, but it wasn’t an overly warm one, or one either of them put much effort into. She was busy and Dan had learned long ago that she didn’t want to hear about what was troubling him. Not really.

It changed because it had to, and it was rocky at first. She started off calling him everyday to check in on him, but they quickly figured out that was too much for both of them and they shifted to about once a week, more if one of them had something particularly exciting to share. That was always her, though. His mum was slowly getting used to asking how he was doing and following up for a real answer, and he was getting used to giving one. Except when it came to school.

“Have you thought anymore about what you want to do next semester?”

“No.”

“Okay,” she says, pivoting at the tone he uses to end conversations. “Have you gone to see the therapist the school recommended?”

“I’ve got to go mum, I’m getting another call.”

“Daniel–”

He hangs up, the relatively pleasant mood he’d somehow maintained all day so far sinking fast. He knows Skyrim can get him out of his own head, so he goes back to his room and opens his most recent save.

It’s 11 pm before he looks up again, so he goes to the kitchen to grab another sandwich for dinner. He takes a picture of his water glass and sends it to Phil and gets a ‘=D’ back. They chat idly while Dan finishes his dinner, then he tells Phil he’s gonna go back to his game. He doesn’t get to bed until 3, and manages to wake up around 11 on Monday. 

Sti not feeling like getting up, he drags his laptop into his bed and watches a few episodes of a new anime before falling asleep again. No matter how much sleep he gets, he doesn’t feel rested, and when he wakes again his brain feels too noisy to do anything but quiet it with Skyrim again. He pauses briefly to stare at a question Phil texts asking him if he’s ever heard of people throwing up weird stuff. He asks, ‘like what?’ and it takes Phil an hour to respond that he’d just fallen down a weird youtube wormhole and to ignore him. Dan texts, ‘links??’ but Phil never gets back to him and he eventually forgets about it. He forces himself off the computer at 1 this time, knowing it’s still too late and he’s going to hate himself in the morning as he sets his alarms for 7 am.

***

Dan definitely very much regrets his late night the next morning, and Alice takes no pity on him, sending him immediately out to water all of the new plantings and spread compost over several of the beds. He doesn’t see much of Phil for the first part of the week, often only managing a few minutes conversation when their lunch breaks overlap. It’s unclear if Alice is keeping a closer eye on him after his rogue sod scraping last week, or if he’s the one keeping himself so busy, but either way he looks distracted and frazzled every time Dan sees him.

He’s also got a growing collection of brightly colored bandages adorning his arms, gaining at least three new ones each day, to the point that Dan catches Nina pulling him aside to ask if everything’s alright. Phil laughs and tells he his flatmate just got a cat and they’ve been having a little trouble getting her accustomed to her new home. Nina responds that Phil doesn’t have a flatmate and is allergic to cats, but Phil just laughs again and says he meant neighbor before ducking out of the room. Nina turns to Dan to give him a ‘what the fuck’ look, and he just shrugs.

With this interaction and his perpetually sore muscles in mind, Dan approaches his Thursday morning assignment of spreading mulch with Phil with some trepidation. He’s had enough time to stew and convince himself that he did something to upset Phil, and the inflation kink conversation is high among his suspects. Phil’s not been treating him differently, so much as he’s not been treating him in anyway at all, except for the very brief conversations Dan’s been able to initiate. He’s most normal over text, but it’s taking longer and longer for him to respond.

Considering all of this, Dan’s decided he’s going to try to play it cool and let Phil initiate any conversations they may or may not have while they work. At least, this is his plan until he sees the full ace bandage wrapped around Phil’s right hand.

“Phil, what the fuck is going on?”

“What? What’s wrong?” Phil whips around to look around, making Dan even angrier.

“Your hand! Why have you got about a million bandages and now one on your hand?”

“Oh, well, my flatmate–”

“Don’t give me that shit. I heard your conversation with Nina.”

“Oh. Right.” Phil pauses, eyes flicking quickly between Dan and the pile of mulch next to him. “Look, it’s really not a big deal. I just… I was embarrassed to tell them, but there’s a stray cat that’s been hanging around my building and I’ve been feeding her. I’ve gotten a little overly friendly a couple of times and she scratched me. She bit me last night when I tried to check to see if she’s got any tags.” It sounds like a very Phil story, but there’s still a shiftiness in his eyes that Dan doesn’t trust. And why would Phil be embarrassed to tell Nina that? Still, he doesn’t feel like he’s earned the right to question Phil yet.

“Alright. Have you been to A&E?”

“Uh–”

“Phil! You need to go to A&E.”

“I disinfected it.”

“What if she’s got some sort of disease?”

“She does have tags. I saw before she bit me. So she’s got her shots, probably. I promise I’ll go if it starts to look bad. I just don’t want her to get in trouble.” This is the weakest argument so far, but there is a ring of Phil logic to it. Dan is also stupid, and lonely, and afraid of the edge of frustration he’s never heard in Phil’s voice before.

“Okay. As long as you keep an eye on it. Are you going to be able to mulch, though? I can just do it myself.”

“No! It’s alright. I’ll just shovel with the other hand.”

“But–”

“It’s alright, I’m bisweptual.”

Dan, who had been in the process of swinging shovel to pick up a scoop of wood chips, misses the pile entirely and has to scrambled to keep from falling flat on his face. “Excuse me?” He turns to look at Phil and is pleased to see that he, too, is bright red.

“Bi _swept_ ual. It’s like– um, I don’t know, Nina taught it to me. They used to row, I guess, like the sport, and they said it’s when you can row on either side. Like you don’t favor a side. Of the boat.”

“Right. Of course, silly me. What a uselessly word.”

“They mostly are. We just thought it was funny, because– um, you know, it relates to gardening too.”

“Right. Gardening.”

“But yeah, I can do either. Don’t have a preference.” Phil’s eyes meet Dan’s briefly, shining brightly, before he casts them down again, blush traveling down his neck. “When I’m shoveling.” As if to prove it, he digs his shovel into the mulch pile and starts scattering it somewhat chaotically around the bed.

Dan has nothing to say to that, so he just follows suit, trying to be a bit neater and brushing off some of the mulch Phil had got on the seedlings as he goes. He’s like 90% sure they’re having the same conversation. Otherwise, the conversation Phil’s having is incredibly stupid. Well, either way it’s pretty stupid, but his heart’s still thumping at the implications.

“Um… are you bisweptual, do you think?” Phil asks after they’ve gotten a good way through the pile, voice teetering dangerously on the edge of shaking. Right, so they’re definitely having this conversation. Via obscure rowing vocabulary.

“You think I row?”

“Well, no, but for mulching.”

“Yeah,” Dan says before he can think about it too much. “I think so.” He knows, in fact, but think feels safer, even in this absurdly abstract iteration of this conversation.

“Cool. That’s good. Useful.”

“Yeah, I’ve found it pretty useful, I guess,” Dan says, unable to keep the hint of laughter out of his voice. He doesn't know how he’s kept himself from dissolving into nervous giggles this entire time, but he doesn’t think he’s going to last much longer.

“I–” Phil doesn’t make it any farther, though, cutting himself off with a sort of choking noise.

“Phil?” Dan drops his shovel and tries to set his hand on Phil back as he starts retching, hands clasped tightly over his mouth. “Are you alright?”

Phil doesn’t respond, just turns and sprints off towards the nearest edge of the woods. Dan can still faintly hear him coughing and sputtering, but he hangs back, figuring he wouldn’t want Phil to watch him vomit. He makes his way back slowly after about a minute, pale and shaking slightly, hands clasped behind his back.

“I’m just going to go in and clean up. Sorry about that,” he whispers, voice raspy and painful sounding.

“Don’t apologize. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I think I might just be catching a bug. I’m fine.” 

“If you’re sure. I can finish up here. Maybe you should head home.” Dan holds himself back from offering to escort Phil back inside, even though he looks like he could use it. He just nods absently and heads back in. Dan works through the rest of the pile as quickly as he can, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his chest that Phil getting sick was some sort of larger omen about the conversation they’d been having. What would it even be saying, that Dan makes Phil sick? He’s the one who had said– well, said he didn’t have a preference first.

Dan heads back inside when he finishes the pile, grabbing his lunch and checking the classroom before heading to the bunker. Before he can even open his mouth, Nina tells him that Phil went home sick for the rest of the day. Choosing to focus on his relief rather than the nagging disappointment, Dan settles onto one of the stools and starts eating. Eventually, Nina takes pity on him and comes over with a deck of cards. They play through their lunches and the brief rain shower until it clears up again, unti Alice comes to tell him to finish up the mulching.

The mulch is heavier now, soaked from the rain, and Dan works slowly, moving from pile to pile around the grounds and letting the task consume the rest of his afternoon. Once he’s done and washed the flecks of wood and mud off of his hands and arms, he sends Phil a quick text, saying he hopes he feels better soon.

Phil responds less than a minute later with a long string of emojis, ranging from the logical sick and sad faces to the weird little purple alien. Dan spends far too long grinning at the green heart in the middle until Nina tells him to snap out of it before they lock him in overnight.

***

Phil doesn’t show up the next day, and Dan should be glad that he’s taking care of himself, but he’s also selfishly annoyed that he has to make it through the day by himself. Nina’s great for a laugh or a card game over lunch, but they get annoyed eventually and wave Dan off, saying he’s distracting them from their work. This is probably the correct response, but it doesn’t make him miss Phil’s endless enthusiasm for talking to him any less. Dan’s used to people getting tired of him, and Phil’s boundless patience both excites and scares him, because he’s gotten far too used to it in a week and a half.

Rather than dwelling on this reality that he should probably acknowledge, he spends the day texting Phil, earning himself two reprimands from Alice and finally a lecture about phone usage at work. It’s still worth it, though, as he takes his case off for the fifth time to shake out the dirt, to hear about Phil’s movie collection, and Phil’s super cool club he had when he was a kid, and his family that he clearly loves a lot more than Dan loves his.

He tells Dan that he’ll definitely be back to work tomorrow, and that’s enough to carry Dan through the rest of the day and the hell of dragging himself out of bed the next morning. Phil is there as promised, looking much better and telling Dan he’ll seem him at lunch while Alice drags Dan off to rip ivy off one of the unused buildings. The sun is out, weak but still warm on his back, and he realizes with a start that he can hear birds chirping. He goes to grab his headphones out of his pocket, then thinks better of it, trying to remember the last time he heard birds. 

He scans the trees around him, but can’t find any of the birds he’s hearing, so he texts Phil to ask him what ones might be out now. Phil adds Nina to the text and they tell him to get back to work, then send a list of birds anyway. He finally finds one on his way back into the office and snaps a quick picture to send to them.

“Great tits,” Nina says as Dan walks into the bunker. They’re sitting at the bench with Phil playing a game of cards, and Phil snickers into his hand as Dan sputters.

“I beg your fucking pardon?”

“The birds you heard. They were great tits.” 

Dan grabs an empty plastic pot from the counter next to him and chucks it at them, but they dodge out of the way and it smacks Phil in the cheek instead. Dan and Nina both burst out laughing while Phil complains loudly about coworker abuse, and eventually throws the pot back at Dan. They resume their card game, Dan making a show of peering over Nina’s shoulder and whispering to Phil until Nina throws their cards down and declares them both cheaters. Phil deals Dan in for the next round and they even get Alice to join them for a few before she points out they’ve each had a two hour lunch break and it’s time to get back to work. Dan can’t help but smile as he’s put back on pot washing duty, grateful for the easy task to end his week, and the most fun he’s had on a Saturday in a while.

Phil comes back to the bunker at the end of the day, ostensibly to wash and return his mug. Dan ignores the kissy faces Nina makes behind Phil back, and, feeling bold and like he might get an invitation similar to last week’s out of it, offers Phil a ride home.

“Ooh,” Nina says, “could I get one too?” Dan glares at them before they break out into laughter. “Just kidding, I have a ride. Have fun you two.” Nina leaves with a wink to Dan’s raised middle finger. He starts gathering his things before he realizes Phil hasn’t actually responded.

“Is that a no?”

“No. I mean, yes, that’d be great. Why wouldn’t I want a ride?”

“Right.” Dan follows after a slightly shaking Phil, unsure what to say. Phil shakes a lot, he just seems like a shaky person, and he’s certainly been known to say weird things, but Dan can’t help but think that Phil accidentally voiced his frustration at not being able to come up with an excuse.

The ride is awkward and quiet, and Dan can’t help but regret his earlier happy mood that made him think this was a good idea. Does Phil not want to hang out with him outside of work? Has the patience Dan had just called endless already run out? 

Dan pulls up in front Phil’s building and they both sit in silence, the car still running.

“Alright,” Dan says finally, just for something to say. He hopes Phil’s not feeling obligated to invite him up again. “I guess I better get–”

“Do you want to come up?” Phil blurts.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to do that. I was just offering you a ride–”

“No, I want to hang out. If you want. It would be fun. I can get a pizza or a curry or something. My treat.” Dan so desperately wants to say yes, but Phil still sounds like someone's forcing him to say these words.

“If you don’t–”

“I just haven’t cleaned in a while. If you give me like five minutes to run up and sort my flat out, I’ll be less weird. Promise.” Phil’s smiling now and Dan wants to believe the calmer note in his voice, so he does.

“Okay. I don’t really care, though, my room’s a complete mess.”

“Just let me do this.”

“Fine. I’ve got to find a parking spot anyway.”

“Great! Five minutes!” With that Phil bolts out of the car and runs up to his building. It only takes Dan three minutes to find a spot and walk back to Phil’s complex, so he does a few laps around the block, figuring seven minutes is better than five. He belatedly realizes he doesn’t know what flat Phil lives in, so by the time Phil texts him the unit number and he makes it all the way up to the second floor from the top, it’s been closer to ten. 

“Welcome,” Phil pants, opening the door wide enough to let Dan slip through then closing it sharply. It’s a relatively nice but small flat, knick knacks and slightly crispy plants scattered across most of the surfaces. It does look relatively clean as Dan makes his way down the hall, past the kitchen with a bar and stools and into the lounge. “This is it.”

“It’s nice. One bedroom?”

“Yeah. I lived with like ten other people in uni and I couldn’t bring myself to live with any more strangers.”

“Definitely,” Dan says, resisting the urge to pick up and inspect all of the things he sees around him. The flat is so much cozier than his and feels like Phil in a way no room of Dan’s ever has, even his childhood bedroom. He kind of just wants to lie on the floor and soak in all of the Philness. He opts to perch on the edge of the couch instead, as Phil hovers by the hallway.

“Can I get you anything to drink? Water?”

“Hydration,” is all Dan says before he realizes that isn’t actually a response. “Sure, thanks.”

“I’ve also got some Ribena. Do you like that?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Dan listens to Phil putter around in the kitchen, which includes a lot of clatters and bangs, and continues to observe all of the things around the room. He’s got a few pieces of art on his wall that look hand painted, colorful and bright in a way Dan actually likes a bit. His DVDs are all on display in his entertainment center, along with some games and his gaming consoles. 

“Do you want pizza or curry? Or another thing?” Phil asks as he hands over the glass.

“Either. Whatever. What would you have gotten if I weren’t here?”

“Probably just pizza.”

“That sounds good then.” Dan takes a big gulp of his Ribena, hoping he’ll have thought of something else to say by the time he’s done. “Do you–”

“We could–” Phil says simultaneously, then cuts himself off at the same time as Dan. The nerves of this oddly tense hang out combined with his exhaustion from the week become too much, and Dan breaks out laughing. 

“What were you going to say?” Dan prompts when he manages to stop.

“We could play a game, if you want? While we wait for the pizza?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

“Cool. Do you play Mario Kart?”

“I think the real question is are you ready to be annihilated at Mario Kart?” 

Phil snorts and like that it feels like the shroud of whatever that was that was blanketing the room seems to lift. Phil asks him to set the game up while he goes to order the pizza. Dan does mostly annihilate Phil, though Phil manages to win a couple of rounds. By the time the pizza arrives, Dan’s caught Phil biting his controller in frustration five times, and the rest of the awkwardness has completely dissipated. Dan doesn’t even stop to think about the ease between them until Phil gets up to pay the delivery person.

They decide to watch Adventure Time during dinner, and they wind up spending more time debating who the best character is than they do eating. Dan’s just about to suggest another round of Mario Kart, or perhaps a game Phil thinks he can actually win, when a clatter followed by a chirping comes from Dan had assumed is Phil’s bedroom. He Dan glances back over at Phil, he’s gone white and is rapidly looking between the door and Dan.

“What was–”

“Nothing!”

“It was clearly something. If you need to go check on it–” 

Phil doesn’t even respond, bolting towards the door. Dan has to force himself to not go press his ear to the door, taking out his phone to try to distract himself instead. Clearly there’s something Phil doesn’t want him to know, and it would be better to just let him tell Dan when he’s ready to. This resolution is short lived, though, as Dan’s curiosity gets the better of him as soon as Phil comes back into the lounge.

“Did you bring the stray cat into your flat?”

Phil just sighs and gestures for Dan to go look, holding the door open. He forgets he’s supposed to be looking out for a feral cat for a moment when he walks into Phil’s room, instantly overwhelmed by how homey it feels. It’s got more bright colors than he would have chosen for himself, covered in blues and greens and purples, but it’s got a warmth and personality that sets Dan at ease. Phil’s arranged more little figurines on his dresser, and he’s got more art that looks like it’s by the same person on the walls. There’s also a set of fairy lights strung up behind the bed, and, as he continues to survey the room, black metal fencing in the middle, kind of like the one they’d used to keep Dan’s childhood dog out of the second floor. Huh.

He moves towards the pen and peers in, not sure what he’s supposed to be looking for. It takes him a minute to spot the small, brown creature quivering in a corner of the enclosure.

“You have a rabbit?”

“Sort've.”

“Why didn’t you just say?”

“I found her at work. I think she got lost from her mum or something. I don’t think Alice or Nina would think it’s a very good idea, but I know what I’m doing. I had a rabbit when I was younger, and I watched a bunch of videos and stuff. I’m taking good care of her.”

“Okay. I wasn’t saying you’re not.” Dan pauses for a moment, trying to take stock. “What’s her name?”

 

“Susan.” Phil frowns when Dan snorts. “What?”

“Nothing. Great name. What are you going to do with her?”

“Keep her,” Phil says, like it’s obvious and he’s a little offended Dan asked. Dan means to stop, but his mouth keeps going, as always, without his permission.

“She’s a wild animal, though, right? I mean she’s the one that scratched and bit you?”

“We were just getting used to each other. She didn’t even– it’s not an issue, okay?

“Okay.” Dan scrambles for a way to seem supportive without outright lying. In the end it’s Phil’s life and Phil’s business, but it does seem like a rather spectacularly bad idea to Dan. “Can I pet her?” 

This seems to do the trick as Phil visibly relaxes.

“Sure. Just– she’s a bit skittish. Could we sit in her pen for a while so she can get used to her?”

This is how Dan finds himself sitting inside an exercise pen on the bedroom floor of a bloke he’s only known two weeks, trying to seem as unthreatening as possible to a bunny the size of a satsuma.

“Why she’s so small?”

“Dunno. She came that way. She’s actually grown a bit.” 

Dan cannot fathom a rabbit being any smaller than this, but he tries to picture it anyway as she hops around the edge of the pen. She is very cute, he has to give Phil that, and watching her little nose twitches is making him feel notably calmer.

“So,” Phil, starts after a prolonged silence, “what did you study in uni? My mum asked and I realized I don’t know.”

“You told your mum about me?” Dan teases, pleased when Phil blushes.

“I told her I made a new friend and she wanted to know about you. I tell her about everything.”

“Have you told her about Susan?”

“Shut up and answer the question, Howell.”

The small amount of calm Susan had brought him dissolves immediately. He takes in a deep breath, then another and another, until his noisy, rapid breathing is filling the room and Phil is looking at him with not a small amount of concern.

He feels a warm hand on his back and hears Phil voice counting and wonders what the fuck he’s doing before he remembers the school psychiatrist counting him through his breathing when he’d had a panic attack in her office when she asked him what he wanted to do about the program. Right. Panic attacks.

He’s not sure how long it takes, but he eventually gets his breathing back under control, aware of Phil’s hand on his back the entire time. It takes him another several minutes for focus to return to the world and to feel like he can put words together. Phil sits calmly in that silence, rubbing his finger down Susan’s back in a rhythmic pattern that works like the counting to trick Dan’s brain back into more of a normal rhythm.

“Sorry,” he finally croaks out.

“Oh! Let me get you a glass of water.” 

Before Dan can protest, Phil stands and maneuvers himself over the pen, running back in less than a minute later with a full glass of water. Dan drinks it down in three gulps and hands it back, avoiding eye contact.

“Sorry,” he repeats, his voice a little clearer this time.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“You seemed to know what to do.”

“My friend in uni got panic attacks sometimes. That’s what I did to help her. Um, not–”

“I’m on a leave of absence from uni. I was studying law, but I failed a bunch of exams, and then I failed my resits. They want me to rest.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t tell your mum.”

“No. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Would you quit apologizing?” His voice is sharper than Dan’s ever heard it and Dan jumps a bit. “Sorry, I’m sorry. I just don’t what you to feel like you’ve done anything wrong. It’s fine. I’m sorry I asked.”

“It’s a normal question to ask, though. I should be able to answer it without having a meltdown.”

“You shouldn’t put yourself down like that.” He says it so softly Dan almost tricks himself into believing he made it up. “Do you want to go watch something? Distract yourself for a bit?”

Dan nods and lets Phil help him up, watching Phil gather up his green and blue checked duvet. He leads Dan back out to the living room, turning Adventure Time back on and dumping the duvet on top of Dan, then heading into the kitchen. He comes back five minutes later with two mugs of hot cocoa and Dan would cry if he had the energy.

When the credits roll Phil grabs the remote and pauses.

“We definitely don’t have to talk about it, but I just wanted to say that there’s a lot of stuff I didn’t have sorted out when I was your age and there’s a lot of stuff I don’t have sorted now, and I think you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself about all of that. I know it’s easier said than done, but if you ever need someone to remind you of all the reasons you’re great, just let me know.” With that he plays the next episode, not waiting for a response from Dan or saying anything further. This time Dan maybe does cry, just a little bit, into the folds of the duvet.

He gets shaken awake gently by Phil some point later. The TV is off and the room is mostly dark and Dan really just wishes Phil had left him sleeping.

“Dan? I didn’t want you to hurt your neck sleeping like that.” 

Dan just hums, sinking lower into the warmth of the duvet. “K. M’wake.”

“You can stay, if you’re not up to driving home. I can sleep on the couch.” Phil’s offer does the trick of waking him up fully. He sits up, blinking rapidly. While it’s obviously exactly what he was just wishing for, the reality of it feels far more complicated than he’s equipped to deal with right now.

“I really appreciate it, but I think I’d rather just sleep in my own bed tonight. I’ll be okay getting home.” He stands and stretches, studiously avoiding Phi’s frown.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Thank you for everything. Seriously.”

“Of course. Text me when you get home so I don’t know you’re in a ditch?”

“Yeah, I’ll remember this time.”

Dan teeters for a moment before he reaches forward slowly, giving Phil the chance to move away. He doesn’t though, just leans in and wraps his arms tight around Dan, pressing forward and forward until he’s fully in Dan’s space, his head tucked over Dan’s shoulder, chest pressed flush to his. Dan lets himself indulge for a full minute before he pulls away.

“Thanks for hanging out with me.”

Dan snorts. “Yeah, I was great company.”

“You were.”

Dan leaves before he can take it back. He manages to remember to text Phil that he made it home safely before he passes out on top of the covers, still in his clothes from work.

The next day he calls his mum and tells her he’s going to make an appointment with the therapist. Their conversation doesn’t last long after that, but she tells him she’s proud of him and he almost believes it.

***

“Dan, I’ve got a bit of an unfortunate job for you,” Alice tells him on a gloomy morning halfway through the next week. Dan groans. The last time he’d heard this, he’d spent the afternoon scraping sod. He was just starting to feel like he could keep pace with it all, but he knows another job like that will ruin him just as badly as it did the first time. “It seems like the rabbits have been extra busy this year. They’ve absolutely destroyed the kitchen garden. I need you to set out some traps.”

“No!” 

Alice and Dan both turn to look at Phil, standing in the doorway looking even paler than normal. 

“Are you alright?” Alice asks.

“You can’t kill the bunnies!”

“The traps shouldn’t kill them, just catch them so we can relocate them. Far away.”

“Where?” Phil demands, voice shaking a bit. Dan’s about to question him when he recalls the image of Phil stroking Susan.

“I don’t know, probably out to the woods out west a couple of miles. That should be far enough I think.”

“But you can’t! There’re probably foxes and– and other things that eat rabbits out there!”

“Well… yeah, probably. But there are foxes here too.”

“What?” Phil shouts.

“Foxes actually prefer urban and suburban areas these days,” Nina supplies. Dan had thought they’d been napping, and he wants to tell them that they’re not exactly being helpful, but Phil’s bolted out of the office and Dan’s more interested in figuring out why the fuck’s he’s reacting so strongly.

“Dan!” Alice calls after him, “you still have to set up the traps.”

“I know, I’ll be right back.” He gets as far as the main door before he realizes he’s got no idea where Phil’s gone. Luckily, all it takes is a quick scan and he finds him bent over in the kitchen garden, swiping at the plants. Dan approaches slowly, trying to figure out what to say. When gets to the edge of the lawn, he still hasn’t figured it out. He’d mosty avoided Phil for the past two days of work, still embarrassed about his meltdown at Phil’s flat. Aside from one slightly stilted lunch, Dan had kept himself busy enough to keep out of Phil’s path, but this feels important enough to ignore his bruised pride. Plus, Phil’s the one freaking out this time which makes Dan feel like they’re on a little more of an even playing field, even if thinking that makes him feel like a piece of shit.

“I’ve not gone insane.” Phil says without looking up.

“Okay.”

“I just dropped my headphones, and I was out here earlier.” Dan doesn’t tell him he can see an earbud dangling out of his jacket pocket. He knows this isn’t about headphones, and if Phil doesn’t want him to know what it is about, he won’t press. 

“I’ll keep an eye out for them.”

“Thanks. Could you–” Phil breaks off and looks up at Dan, eyes still a little wild, biting his lip. “This is going to sound a little weird.”

“That’s okay. You’re a little weird.” He says it with a smile, hoping Phil will return it. He doesn’t quite, but his frown loosens.

“I know you have to put the traps out, but if you do catch any rabbits, could you give them to me?”

“Phil–”

“I just want to take them somewhere else. I’m not going to keep them. There’s a field near my parents house that I think would be nice. They’re just– I think it would be better. I can tell Alice, okay? I’m sure she’ll be fine with it.”

“Yeah, that’s fine. It doesn’t make any difference to me.” 

“Right. Okay, thanks. I’ve got to go finish up the website update. Thanks.” With one last doubtful look at the garden, Phil heads back over to the building. Dan hangs back to avoid awkwardly following him, watching his hunched walk. What on earth was that about? 

Once Phil’s gone through the door, Dan heads back to the office, getting the instructions from Alice about how to set up the traps and where they should go. He spends the rest of the morning arranging them around the property, thinking of Phil’s expression when he’d asked Dan to bring him the rabbits each time he positions one. Is he just that attached to the rest of the rabbits because of Susan? Dan knows he feels responsible for her, and he supposes it makes a certain amount of sense that that responsibility could transfer to other rabbits that may well be her siblings. Still, something seems off about this. It’s not like he’s known Phil for long, but Dan likes to think he knows him pretty well despite that. At least enough to know that this was uncharacteristically flustered for Phil. Just, frustratingly, not enough to know what might be wrong.

By the time he’s finished up with the traps he’s talked himself into and back out of asking Phil what’s upsetting him about five times. Still not sure where’s he’s landed, he pokes his head into the office to ask Phil if he wants to have lunch.

This one starts just as awkwardly as their lunch on Tuesday had, though Phil’s the one resolutely staring down at his food this time. Dan doesn’t really think he’s cut out for this. Phil had made light small talk the other day, chatting endlessly about stupid shit until Dan had managed to chill out a bit. Dan’s not good at small talk, though, or compassionate cheerfulness or muscling through awkward encounters. This is when he ducks out, and is probably why he doesn’t have any close friends left. But if Phil needs him to, he’s going to try.

“Why were you so upset about the rabbits?” Well, or just deal with the situation in his own blunt manner.

“I just– I don’t want them to get hurt because of me.”

“What does it have to do with you?”

“I–” Phi never continues this thought, just staring down at his hands in distress.

“Is it because of Susan?” 

Phil let’s his head fall down onto the desk, nodding.

“You feel responsible for her bunny family too?” Dan waits as Phil pauses, then nods again. “Is there anything I can do?” Phil shakes his head. “Do you just want to be sad about it for a bit.” At this Phil raises his head and looks at Dan finally, smile wobbly but there.

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’m an expert at being sad. Let me curate the experience for you.” Dan scrolls through his phone to find his best wallowing playlist and sets it on Phil’s desk, then grabs the rest of his lunch and gets up, turning the lights off. As he’s almost out of the door he hears Phil making a strange little hiccuping noise, but when he turns back around Phil just smiles at him. “Come get me if you want sad company.” 

Dan doesn’t see Phil again until the end of the day, but he’s looking much better when he comes to find Dan and return his phone.

“Thank you.”

“‘Course. Just returning the favor.”

“Would you want to work on the filming project on Saturday? I already asked Alice and she said it was fine.”

“Yeah, that would be great. What are we going to do?”

“Alice wants a video people can watch to find out more about the garden and what we offer. I thought we could do little skits for some of the workshops we offer and do like a little tour of the grounds.”

“Cool. Should I bring anything?”

“Nope. I’ve got an outline already, and we can brainstorm a bit Saturday morning to see if you have any ideas, then get to work.”

Dan offers Phil a lift home, which turns into Phil inviting him up for just one Mario Kart rematch, which of course lasts several hours. He doesn’t get back home until after midnight, and Nina asks them why they both look so tired the next day with several winks aimed at both of them. 

The day drags on seemingly unendingly. Alice seems determined to teach Dan every inch of botanic garden work, and today he’s assigned to work with Polly to learn about their database system and the endless number of forms she has for documenting new plants, moved plants, dead plants, and on and on and on. In the afternoon he gets plopped in front of a giant machine with a stack of little metal plaques to make plant labels. The spacing is incredibly finicky and all the scientific names seem the same to him, so he accidentally engraves a number of duplicates, while others are cut off halfway through. The one highlight is that he does a bad enough job that Alice tells him he’s never allowed to make plant labels ever again.

Phil’s gone by the time he finishes up the labels he was supposed to bring to Polly, so he heads directly home, trying not to get too excited for work tomorrow and miserably failing.

***

The next morning dawns bright, sun already out when Dan gets up. He gets to work early for once, and has to wait for Phil. Nina gets in first and does a double take when they see him, before shuffling immediately over to the coffee machine.

“Eager for work today? Any particular reason?”

“Shut up,” Dan says, accepting the mug they hand him with a snort. He hasn’t claimed any particular mug despite pressure from Phil and Alice, and they’ve given him the ‘it’s party thyme’ one, while they’ve gone for their favorite “trans-plant” with a plant in a little smiling pot colored like the trans flag.

Nina deals out a hand for war, their go to morning game as it’s mindless enough to let their brains wake up. Phil comes in when Dan’s down to four cards, and Nina jumps up, declaring Dan has to forfeit so they win. Phil lets them argue about it and resume their game until he’s finished his first cup of coffee, then he drags Dan to the classroom.

He’s got a pretty detailed outline already, and Dan can only think of a couple of suggestions, but Phil studiously writes them all down, commenting on how he thinks it could tie in or what a good idea it is each time. After an hour of planning, Phil sends Dan out to collect their props while he sets out their ‘wardrobe.’ It turns out he’s brought a pretty extensive collection of costumes, even including two wigs.

They spend the morning filming the tour part, which Phil talks through and explains he’ll cut the audio and do voice over for. Phil makes sure to get shots of anything that’s blooming and gets some close ups on some of the different buds giving the trees a fuzzy, yellow look from afar. He teaches Dan about the decisions he’s making as they go, why it’s easier to do the basic garden info with voice over and how to set up the mic to get some good ambient noise clips to layer under that. He calls Dan a quick learner and Dan has to turn is face away to hide his dopey smile. 

After a quick lunch, they go back out to film the the workshop and program skits. Phil does run off a couple of times rather suddenly and always returns with some excuse about a forgotten prop or needing a new battery for the camera. Each time he looks a little paler and his voice is rougher, and Dan makes a mental note to google diseases you can get from rabbits that would make you nauseous. 

Otherwise, it all runs pretty smoothly. Everything takes about three times longer than Dan had been anticipating, but it’s also way more fun, and definitely way sillier. Some of the stuff they film is weird enough that Dan doubts it will make the final cut. At one point Phil makes Dan pretend to be a villain called Paul Ution and has him clap blackboard erasers they had rubbed with chalk over a patch of plants while he explains his dastardly plan for world domination via contamination. Alice and Nina come out some time in the afternoon to throw suncream at them and they wind up staying to watch, almost falling over laughing several times. Dan’s a little embarrassed, but mostly he doesn’t care. He’s having fun, and Phil’s wild smile is enough for him.

It’s fine. So Dan’s got a little workplace crush. Who doesn’t? Work wives—or husbands—are a thing, right? You have someone who you like a little more than anyone else, who’s cute and funny and smiles extra bright when you walk in the room and you just want to die. They make the day easier to get through. You take on extra tasks to spend more time with them, because even if it’s more work, it goes by faster in their company.

Maybe your coworkers have caught on and rib you about it, but they’ve always been nuisances, and they don’t do it in front of him, any way. It’s a joke, like any of the other millions of jokes they’re constantly making. Haha, Dan’s in love with Phil. Haha, stop staring Howell, you’re drooling. Obviously it’s not true. He’d checked and there’s never any drool. And it’s only been three weeks, so he’s obviously not in love. That’s stupid. 

It’s just a work crush, and it’s fine.

***

The next morning, Dan opens his eyes, feeling very suddenly awake, though he thinks he’s been slowly drifting back to consciousness for a while now. His room is bright, so he’s only got himself to blame for his wasted morning off lie in, but he can’t seem to muster any annoyance. Instead, he watches the sun make patterns on the ceiling, reveling in the strange sensation of not feeling tired. He feels almost eager to get out of bed, in fact, something he hasn’t experienced in months. Maybe years. He gets up to go to the bathroom and grab a glass of water, wondering at the lightness of his body until he realizes he doesn’t feel sore for once.

When he gets back to his room, he opens the window, even though it’s probably a little too cold for it. He props himself on the edge of his bed, wishing he were at Phil’s flat instead, sat on his sad excuse with a porch with him, drinking his shitty coffee from one of his impractical mugs. There’s something off, and he can’t quite place what it is, until he sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eyes. Birds. He can hear birds again.

He may not know much about plants or nature in general, but he knows enough to recognize the small flock of birds perched in the tree outside his window as robins, with the bright shock of red splashed across their chest. There are two sat away from the rest, and Dan lets his head wander to silly places for a moment, wondering if they’re friends. If maybe they prefer each other’s company to anyone else’s, and if one of them has a cute northern accent. Except that’s probably stupid, because surely they’re all Northern. Or maybe they’re all Southern? Where do robins come from anyway?

A car door slams somewhere down on the street, sending the birds up into the sky and jarring Dan out of him musings.

He texts Phil to ask him about bird accents, and Phil says he doesn’t know, but they wind up chatting for over an hour anyway about what sort of accents different kinds of birds would have. Halfway through their debate Phil sends Dan a screenshot of a text from Nina saying that birds do have accents, but that he should never text them on a Sunday morning again. They spend the rest of the day texting on and off, and even though he doesn’t do much of anything, Dan can't help but feel like it was a great day.

***

“Happy mothiversary!” Phil and Alice cry as soon as he steps into the bunker on Tuesday morning. Alice shoves something in his hand and looks down to find a mug. Of course. He flips it over and can’t help but let out a laugh.

“Wow, thanks so much you guys,” he says brandishing the mug so that the side ‘world’s okayest gardener,’ faces out.

“I told them the best gift they could have given you was a plain black mug, but no one ever listens to me, do they?”

“We’re so happy you stuck around, Dan,” Alice says, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Now go weed the western gate garden, it looks atrocious.” She takes the mug from his hand and hands him a trowel instead, steering him out the door.

The garden does look awful, but he rushes to make it back in time for lunch with Phil. He’d dropped him off on Saturday and been persuaded to come up to hang out for a bit, but had left early when Phil had started feeling sick again. He spent a regrettable few hours on WebMD learning about the different diseases rabbits can carry, none of which he could pronounce, and their various symptoms, and had resolved to confront Phil on Tuesday. Now that it’s Tuesday, this task seems a little more daunting, but the deep bags under Phil’s eyes and the slight green tinge to his skin presses him forward.

“Are you feeling any better?”

Phil looks up from his silent contemplation of his leftover pizza and blinks slowly a couple of times. “Yeah, just a bit tired. Thumper kept me up last night.”

“Thumper?”

“Er, Susan. Sorry. I’ve discovered she might be a boy.” 

Dan narrows his eyes, trying to gauge how much he believes Phil right now. He’s not proven to be a very good or consistent liar, and Dan had already been concerned Phil was going to try to take more of the rabbits in. Dan hadn’t found any in the cages last week whenever he went around, but that doesn’t mean Phil hadn’t checked himself.

“Right. I mean the vomiting though. Are you still feeling nauseous?”

“Oh right. I went to the doctor and they said it was just a stomach bug that’s been going around. I got some meds and I’ve been feeling better. Thanks for asking.” He stands quicky, wrapping his lunch back up. “The meds are messing with my appetite, though, so I might just get back to work now. See you later.”

The conversation leaves Dan feeling even more concerned than he had before and does a quick round to check all the traps. He finds two rabbits, which just seems to confirm his suspicion that Phil’s been checking them himself and probably taking them all home. Can he really think adopting this many wild rabbits is a good idea? Dan takes the rabbits directly to Alice and tells her to take them away quietly. Before she leaves, she asks him if there’s something going on with Phil. He just shrugs, but he’s equal parts relieved and concerned that she’s noticed too. 

When he offers Phil a ride that afternoon, Phil thanks him but says he’s got some errands to run and walks away before Dan can offer to help with them.

***

Wednesday morning finds the four of them lined up in front of the row of hosts Dan and Phil had planted on Dan’s first day, surveying the ravaged leaves.

“There are definitely more rabbits this year,” Alice sighs, rubbing a hand to her temple.

“You think? This seems pretty normal–“

“Phil, they’ve eaten all of the flowers off the hostas you planted– which shouldn’t have even flowered yet by the way– and most of leaves.”

“Do the bites seem kind of small to you, though?” Nina asks, bending down to examine a bite.

“Yeah see it’s probably not even bunnies,” Phil says, and Dan rolls his eyes, thinking of how small Susan was he last saw her.

“We’ve got to step up our game. The Havahart traps aren’t enough. We’re declaring war!”

“Like a peaceful war where no one dies?” Phil asks hopefully.

“No. There have already been casualties. What about my zinnias? Who’s going to avenge them?”

“Look, there’s one,” Nina says, pointing over to a brown blur disappearing under a row of bushes, a larger grey and white blur right on it’s heels.

“Pepper, no!” Phil cries, diving after both of them. He emerges from the bushes a few very noises moments later, dripping blood down his arm and holding an irate Pepper.

“You can’t stop her from killing all the rabbits, Phil. She’s just doing her job. The plants are the real underdogs here!” Alice storms back into the building, Nina trailing after her while gesturing at Phil and mouthing ‘do something.’

“I think you should put Pepper down.”

“I just want to make sure the bunny gets away first.”

“She’s scratching you.”

“It’s fine, I’ll survive. The bunny won’t.”

“Will you, though,” Dan shouts, the worry building up finally breaking through. “You’ve looked ready to collapse for days now, I think you’re probably hoarding wild rabbits in your flat, and did you know that they can carry Salmonella, Lympho-something chromo-something, and monkey fever? Have you actually been to a doctor? And did you tell them you’d been bitten by a rabbit–”

“Dan!” Phil cuts him off, dropping Pepper to the ground, and if the sound of Phil shouting wasn’t enough to stop his rant, the disgruntled yowl is. “Enough. It’s none of your business, alright? It’s my health, and I’ve got it under control. Just– leave me alone!” He storms off towards the building and Dan gives him a bit of a head start before trailing after. Phil storms past the bunker and when Dan goes in, Nina turns her head back towards him.

“That went well, huh?”

“Oh, fuck off.”

“What’s going on with him?” they press, blatantly ignoring his request and coming to sit next to him at the counter.

“I’ve got no idea.”

“Well. Something’s up.”

“No shit.”

“Fine, it’s everyone yell at everyone else day!” they shout, standing back up with a screech of the stool against the floor. “Have fun with that!”

“I’m not,” Dan mutters to himself. He goes to find Alice for something to do, and accidentally gets himself re-enlisted in the age old rabbit–plant war. Despite her strong words earlier, she doesn’t have him set out any poison.

“Tempted!” she snaps when he asks. “I’ve been very tempted. But this is a wildlife refuge too, so I can’t do any harm to them. Doesn’t stop me from cheering Pepper and the owls and foxes on, but I won’t hurt them.” He almost tells her there was no need for her to have told Phil there would be casualties, but he isn’t keen on getting another rant.

Instead, the spend the rest of the day spraying the plants with rabbit repellents and setting out netting, aluminum pans, decoy owls, and, in one exhausting case, a full fence that John has to cut them wood for. Even when it starts to drizzle, she won’t let them go in.

Dan manages to pry himself away from Alice only half an hour after work should have ended, and he’s desperate for a hot shower and an entire pizza, but he’s got an errand to run first.

***

Dan gets to work 45 minutes early the next morning and manages to beat everyone except for John, who just waves as him as he drives by on one of the buggies. It takes him 20 minutes to stalk down Pepper, and another five to lure her close enough to grab her, but it turns out this was the easy part of trying to get her into a collar. The bell jangles jauntily as he fights to keep a grip on her. When brute force doesn’t seem to be working, he resorts to bargaining.

“Look, I know you hate this, but please just wear it. If you don’t, I’m afraid Phil’s going to drive himself crazy trying to save the rabbits. He maybe already has.”

“I’d be careful. You know what they say about throwing stones in glass houses. You’re the one trying to reason with a cat.”

Dan jumps, dropping Pepper in the process, but Phil is quick to snatch her up again.

“I can hold her while you put on the collar.” 

Dan just nods and steps forward, taking care not to brush up against Phil. It turns out it’s a much easier task with two people and he gets it on in a few seconds. Phil drops her immediately and she flattens herself to the ground, shaking her head. Dan almost feels bad enough to take it off again, but that seems like it would only make things worse. And Phil is smiling at him again.

“You know Alice is just going to take that off her if she sees it.”

“Probaby, but I figured it was worth a try.”

“Thank you.” He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but instead he claps his hand over his mouth and rushes back towards the building, leaving Dan alone on the lawn with a still very disgruntled Pepper.

“Today’s not going well for either of us, huh?”

It starts to rain, of course, by the time he tracks Alice down, so she tells him he can help out Nina or Phil with whatever they’re doing. Normally this would be great news, but today it’s not much of a choice. Nina seems to take pity on him and they teach him to fill seed orders. Apparently the garden has a collection of seeds that other gardens or gardeners can purchase, and Nina’s in charge of sending them off.

Nina’s mostly good company, and after asking once how Phil is doing, they give him space on that topic. They laugh about some of the silly names and weird orders, and when one bulbous turns out to contain just one gigantic seed that some garden had ordered 15 of. Stil, Dan can’t help but think of the strange stories Phil would probably be making up about weirder looking seeds and wishing he was here with them too.

When Dan, gathering all of the courage and patience he can find in himself, goes to offer Phil a ride home at the end of the day, Phil doesn’t even speak, just tapping the headphones he’s got on and shooting him a little frown.

***

On Friday, Phil’s still not talking to him. Well, he’s not really talking to anyone, and he’s hard to pin down, but Dan thinks Phil’s especially not talking to him. Dan had gotten permission to leave work an hour early to go see the therapist, so he doesn’t get a chance that day to offer Phil a ride, but Dan’s pretty confident he’d turn it down today too, so it’s almost a relief.

The new therapist is a man and Dan’s not sure how he feels about that, but he starts out genty, asking how Dan’s day has been going and some follow up questions about his job at the garden. Dan finds himself speaking more enthusiastically and expansively about his work than he ever could have pictured three weeks ago. It feels good, he realises, explaining what he does and knowing what he’s talking about, at least enough to impress someone who doesn’t.

The unfortunate part of his newfound chattiness is his therapist picks up on his frequent mentions of Phil. He supposes it would be more worrying if he didn’t notice, but when the questions start to turn to Phil, he gets uncomfortable very quickly. Explaining their relationship to a stranger brings into sharp relief how short a time it’s been since they met, and the disproportionate importance Dan puts on Phil’s presence. Dr. Hill doesn’t explicitly say so, but Dan can tell he finds Dan’s reliance on Phil troublesome from the questions he’s asking. 

They schedule another appointment for two weeks from now before Dan leaves, but he’s already planning on skipping it. Dr. Hill sends him off with the advice to take it easy and not take on too many new things all at once while he’s trying to work through everything that’s already on his plate, and Dan reads that message loud and clear. No Phil. Not that there’s any Phil currently to not take on.

***

Saturday Phil’s absent from work again, and it’s all Dan can do to keep from breaking down. He’d just resolved to try to distance himself from his dependency on Phil, and three hours at work without him feels like torture. Nina and Alice even go out of their way to cheer him up, bringing him coffees and teas throughout the day and giving him the easiest tasks they can think of with frequent breaks filled with card games and music Dan knows for a fact Nina hates. It thunders in the afternoon, and Alice eventually just sends him home early, telling him his bad mood is infectious.

He takes a long, hot shower when he gets home, then collapses into bed and doesn’t wake up again until Sunday morning. He realizes belatedly that his phone is ringing and scrambles to find it in his sheets, struck with a sudden, if foggy certainty that it’s Phil and he needs him. When he finally locates his phone, the caller ID tells him it was just his mum. He rings her back anyway, because he’s sad and he wants his mum to make him feel better.

“Hello darling, how are you? I didn’t wake you up did I?”

“Yeah,” Dan mumbles, not bothering to brighten his voice like he normally does.

“Oh, what’s the matter? Are you coming down with something.”

“No. Just sad.” There’s another pause, in which Dan wonders if he’s ever actually told his mum he’s sad, before she clears her throat.

“Did it go alright with the therapist.”

“Oh. Yeah, that was fine. I don’t know if I liked him all that much, but I think it was good that I went.”

“So… is it work that’s got you down?”

“Mum,” he blurts, “I like someone.” He thinks for a second that she hung up, but then he hears a little laugh.

“And who’s that?” She asks, voice measured and neutral.

“Phil.” He’s not sure she knew and he’s not sure she didn’t, but it still feels monumental to say it aloud either way.

“From your job?”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re sad about this? Has he been mean to you? Do I need to come beat him up?” She sounds so serious, and Dan lets out a startled laugh that takes a turn somewhere and becomes tears instead. “Oh bear. It’s alright. Boys are stupid.”

“I’m a boy too though. I’m stupid.”

“Aw, love, that’s not what I meant.”

“I pushed him. I was just worried about him, but I shouldn’t have pried about his health.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” She waits while he cries for a bit, then listens to him explain the situation, edited a little to make the rabbit thing seem less… weird. 

When he gets to the end he doesn’t feel better, necessarily, but he feels a bit lighter. She advises that he give Phil a little time then try talking to him again and explaining that he was just worried. They chat a little longer, his mum filling him on the family gossip and her plans for the next trip, which she invites him on. For the past few years he’s turned those invitations down, but he tells her he’ll think about it. With one last reminder to call his grandma, she wishes him luck and tells him to have a good rest of the weekend. 

He told her he’d try, but he doesn’t really try at all. He stays in bed all day Sunday playing Skyrim, even though all that’s doing is distracting him. He does open the window when the clouds clear up a bit, letting the breeze carry in the sweet smell of retreating rain and new growth fill his room.

Monday he decides it’s a good day to deep clean his room, sorting through piles of crap he’d accumulated over his year and a half in uni and scrubbing down all of the surfaces they revealed. He sticks his sheets in the washing machine then moves to the rest of flat to banish every speck of dust he can find. This is something he normally reserves for the depths of a procrastination spiral, but it feels good today too, as he tries not to think too much about Phil and enjoy the fresh air and bird songs coming in through the windows.

***

His tentative good mood only lasts until he realizes that Phil hasn’t come into work on Tuesday either. He tries asking, then bribing Alice for information, but she just keeps saying that she can’t tell Dan why Phil’s not in. Don’t worry though, she says. As if.

He throws himself headfirst into the tasks Alice sets him that day, finishing them in record speed. At least for him. It might still be a little slow for actual gardeners. It’s still enough to impress Alice into letting him leave an hour early. Unless she’s just tired of his shit. Either way, he makes it over to Phil’s building by 3:22, though he does have to wait a few minutes to find someone to con into letting him through the front door.

It takes Phil a moment to answer his knock, and Dan can hear him muttering, “both of you get back,” from the other side of the door, which is not promising. When Phil sees Dan he freezes in place, and Dan has to lean down to scoop up a rabbit that was making a run for it. A rabbit that is white and definitely not Susan. 

“Can I come in?”

Phil steps aside silently, shoving the other rabbit back with his foot. Dan counts six of them before he gives up and makes his way to the couch, setting the rabbit in his hands down in front of him.

“So,” Dan says after a protracted silence. “Rabbits?”

“I have something I have to tell you.”

“Please.”

“You’re going to think I’m weird.”

“I thought we’d been over this. I hate to tell you this mate, but that ship sailed weeks ago.”

“I’ve been vomiting rabbits,” Phil says. He states it so calmly that Dan’s sure he must have misheard.

“You’ve been doing what to rabbits?”

“Vomiting. Throwing them up. For four weeks now. That’s where all of these came from. Well I think Jeremiah might just be a normal rabbit, but he got trapped along with Jessica and I think they bonded so I didn’t want to separate them.”

“Right. You– how?”

“I don’t really know, it just happens. I’d show you, but I can’t really control it. If you stick around it might happen, though. It’s been happening more frequently. They’ve been pretty small, but they are getting bigger, which is a bit worrying too. I’ve tried googling it, but nothing useful ever comes up.”

“Oh,” Dan breathes, not breaking eye contact with a black and white rabbit about the size of a grapefruit. That had come out of Phil?

“I’m thinking maybe it’s some sort of allergy? It seems to mostly happen when I’m outside at work. Like the other day with Pepper. I am allergic to cats.” 

“What the fuck kind of allergy manifests in rabbit vomiting?”

“I don’t know! What kind of anything manifests in rabbit vomiting?” Dan falls silent, overwhelmed with just how not prepared he is to handle this particular problem. He’d practiced what he’d do if Phil said he didn’t want to be friends anymore, or if he told Dan he was flattered but he didn’t think of him that way and he needed to back off. He’d even gotten as far as planning for Phil telling he had some sort of terminal rabbit disease, or being in charge of firing him for some reason and having a hard time figuring out how to do it. But rabbit vomiting he had not prepared a speech for.

“Right.”

“Are you okay?” Phil perches on the far end of the couch, looking concerned. Dan thinks he should be asking Phil that.

“It’s just a lot to, uh– how many?”

“18 in tota.”

“Jesus. Are they all–”

“No some of them got away. I’ve got eight here.”

“And this is why you were so upset about them getting trapped?”

“They’re like my babies, Dan. I’m like their mum, kinda.”

“I suppose,” Dan mutters, shooing at the tawny rabbit nibbling on his shoelace. 

“Let me get you a glass of water.” Phil pops up again go to the kitchen, nearly tripping over another rabbit on his way. He makes it back safely with the water, and Dan drains the glass in one go.

“Okay, so you’re throwing up rabbits. Google says nothing?” Phil shakes his head. “The doctor didn’t help?”

“He just said it should subside in two to three weeks and to come back if I have any worsening symptoms.”

“Great. What about your mum?”

“I haven’t told her.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know! I just figured maybe I could get over it on my own. My dad’s always saying I need to be more independent.”

“Yeah, like don’t ask them for money or bring your wash home for your mum to do! Not if you’re barfing rabbits.” 

“Okay, alright, hang on.” Phil fishes in his pocket for his phone. They both listen to the ringing in silence, the volume up loud enough for Dan to hear.

“Child?”

“Mum? Hey.”

“Are you almost ready for your flight?”

“My what?”

“Your flight. At 7 tomorrow morning.”

“Shit!” Dan’s too distracted by hearing Phil swear for the first time to process at first that Phil’s jumped up and gone to his room. He gets up to follow, catching the last half of Phil’s mum’s reprimand. 

“–how could you forget, we’ve been planning this for months and I reminded you two weeks ago. It’s the first time Martyn’s bringing Cornelia.”

“I know mum, I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot going on. I’m packing now. I’ve got to go grab my toiletries, here, talk to Dan.” Phil shoves the phone in Dan’s face and doesn’t wait for Dan to take it before dropping it and running back out of the room.

“Hello? Hello?” Dan can hear from the phone on the floor. “Dan? _The_ Dan?” He bends to retrieve the phone and put it to his ear.

“I guess, yeah. Hi Mrs. Lester.”

“Oh, you can call me Kath, dear. I’ve heard so much about you, it’s nice to finally talk to you.”

“It’s good to talk to you too.” Dan nudges a rabbit from Phil’s open suitcase and sits on his bed. “How are you?”

“Oh, just fine. Watching my husband pack in much the same panic I assume Phil’s experiencing right now. He didn’t forget about the vacation, he just put it off until the last minute.”

“Ah.”

“I’m sorry to be stealing Phil away from you for two weeks. I hope you won’t miss him too much.”

“Two weeks?” Dan echos as Phil comes barrelling back into the room, hand full with an insane number of toiletries. “What about your rabbits?”

“Rabbits? Phil, when did you get rabbits?”

“Just, um, fostering them, mum. Don’t worry. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Dan,” Phil turns back to him, “Do you think you could watch them? I could pay you, and you could sleep here if it makes it easier.”

“Okay,” he says without thinking. And then, because he’s grasping at straws, he adds, “What about work?” He’s asking Phil, but Kath answers as well.

“Oh, it won’t be too much trouble for you at work will it?”

“I already got the time off. That’s probably why Alice was so confused when I called in sick today.”

“Are you sick, child?” Kath shouts. Dan decides to cut out the middleman and turn on speakerphone.

“No mum, just, uh allergies.” 

“Okay, well I’ll bring you some decongestants for the plane. You know how your head gets if you fly with a stuffy nose.”

“Thanks mum. I should probably get going now. I’ve got to finish packing.”

“Alright, love. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. It was good to speak with you Dan!”

“You too!” Dan calls. He stares at the phone in his hand until Phil takes it from him and hangs up.

“I can’t believe I forgot,” Phil groans, collapsing on the bed next to Dan. His arm is flopped over on Dan’s thigh, but there’s no time for that.

“You’re really going?” 

Phil seems to take that as some sort of reminder and groans, getting back up and unfortunately removing his arm from Dan’s leg in the process. He goes to his dresser and grabs a stack of t-shirts. “I have to. You heard my mum. Cornelia’s coming.” Dan ignores the insane bolt of jealousy he feels for this complete stranger.

“Right. But…is now really the best time to travel?” Dan asks as he watches Phil lift another rabbit from his suitcase. He wants to say that they’ve only just started talking again and he doesn’t think he can go two whole weeks without Phil at work and Phil in his flat and Phil just generally in the same country as him. Instead, he says, “think of the rabbits.”

“The rabbits? I thought you said you could watch them. Do you not want to?”

“No, that’s fine. Just– what if you throw one up on the plane? Don’t you get motion sickness?”

Phil freezes with a stack of jeans in his hands. “I didn’t think of that. I mean, there are airsick bags, right? It’s not like throwing up on a plane is a weird thing, I just have to make sure no one see it.”

“I think it’s illegal, though, to smuggle animals across international borders.”

“Dan,” Phil soothes, and now his hand is on Dan’s thigh, which is nice too. “Take a few breaths for me, okay?” He thinks probably Phil’s the one that needs to do breathing exercises, but he plays along anyway. “I know I just dropped this very weird thing on you and I’m just suddenly leaving. I don’t want to. But I also– It might help to talk to my mum in person, and get a break from work for a bit. Who knows, if it is an allergy maybe it will stop while I’m in Florida.”

“Maybe.”

“If you don’t want to watch the rabbits, I completely understand. It’s a lot to ask.”

“No, I want to help. If you feel like you have to go–”

“Thank you!” Suddenly Phil’s got his arms wrapped around Dan and his brain shuts off completely for a moment. He’s warm and smells like strawberries and hugs him so firmly that Dan can’t be held responsible for the little chirp he lets out when Phil pulls away. 

Phil sets him up with a game of Sonic while he finishes packing. He also orders them takeaway at some point, and when it arrives he takes a break to eat with Dan and watch some TV. When they finish, Phil takes him around to meet all of the rabbits and teach him how to approach them and hold them, but only if necessary, he emphasizes. He shows Dan where the food and water bowls are, how to feed them, and how to set up and clean the litter box. He sits down to write out all of the instructions while Dan plays some more Sonic, and it feels deceptively easy to pass an evening like this.

Before he knows it, it’s 11 and he knows he should leave because Phil has an early flight and he’s got work in the morning. But Phil’s not kicking him out and Dan’s making no moves to leave.

“Do you want to borrow some pajamas?”

“What?”

“You can just stay. It’ll be easier than coming back over to feed them in the morning. I have to leave too early to do it.” It’s the third time that’s Phil’s offered, and who is Dan to punish persistence?

“Alright.”

“I really don’t– Oh.” Phil’s clearly caught off guard by his positive answer, and Dan takes a moment to appreciate the way the smile forms on his lips. “Great. You can take the bed. Or–” Phil continues forcefully, cutting Dan off before he can protest, “we can share. Your choice.”

“Share,” Dan says, before he loses his nerve.

“Great. I’m going to shower. I’ll set pajamas out for you, and then you can shower if you want.”

Dan puts the food away and sets the rabbit instructions on the peninsula, then goes into Phil’s room when he hears the shower turn on. He removes approximately five rabbits from the bed before he flops down inhaling the scent of Phil’s pillows.

He must fall asleep, because he wakes to Phil, clad it several towels, poking him repeatedly. He thinks, somewhat deliriously, that this is a great way to wake up.

“Glad you think so. The shower’s free if you want it.”

He flees to the bathroom and takes a quick but thorough shower, drying himself off hastily and slipping into the clothes Phil gave him. He braces himself, then shuts off the light and makes a run for it, slowing as best he can before he makes it to Phil’s room. Phil seems to have noticed his demon evasion ritual anyway and laughs softly, burrowed deep into the covers. He flips a corner over and that’s all the invitation Dan needs.

They’re both long and noodly and it takes a little maneuvering to get them both settled in Phil’s bed. Phil’s foot is resting on Dan’s calf and Dan doesn’t think he could ask for anything more. Until, that is, he feels Phil shimmying, his fingers wandering and prodding until Dan’s on his side, wrapped around Phil. It lasts a glorious 30 seconds before Phil’s coughing and out of the bed, racing to the bathroom.

He returns holding a pitch black rabbit about as long as a banana and deposits it on Dan’s hip before returning to his previous position.

“Rabbit,” Phil murmurs matter of factly, and Dan might respond, or he might just pull Phil in tighter and fall fast asleep.

***

Dan wakes covered in rabbits and alone in Phil’s bed. He’s left Dan a note thanking him again saying they’ll talk soon, along with a pot of coffee and several boxes of cereal left on the counter. Dan feeds the rabbits and then himself, and takes a few minutes to pick out some clothes of Phil’s to borrow. Phil hadn’t left him with much, but it still feels fun to try to find the most Dan like thing in his wardrobe.

It turns out he hadn’t done a great job, because Nina immediately asks if he’s wearing Phil’s shirt when he walks into work.

“I thought Phil was in Florida,” Alice says.

“He is, I’m watching his rabbits for him.”

“His what?”

“Shit.” 

It takes him 15 minute to talk his way out of that conversation, and Phil’s definitely going to get a talking to when he gets back. When he finally escapes he goes out to find something to do for himself. Doing a quick round to check the traps before settling down in a garden that’s in desperate need of weeding in the far corner of the property.

He heads back for lunch and pulls out his phone, intending to play a game to pass the time. A notification catches his eye, though and he taps it to open his email. His eyes start to blur before he can get all the way through, but he gets the general message that his school wants him to let them know if he plans on re-enrolling for the next semester or if he plans on dropping out. They don’t use that term, but it’s all that’s left in Dan’s head now.

“I saw the storm clouds rolling in and I figured I should come check on you.”

“What?” Dan waits for his eyes to focus and he finds Nina in front of him.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. Is Phil okay?”

“Not everything’s about Phil,” he snaps, and Nina raises their hands up.

“Alright, okay. News to me. What’s wrong then?”

“Nothing,” he insists. Nina just raises an eyebrow and goes over to make them both a cup of tea. When they sit back down, Dan’s breathing has regulated a bit. He glances back down at his phone, then at Nina. “My school wants to know if I’m coming back in the fall or not.” Dan takes a sip of his tea while he waits for Nina’s reply.

“I almost dropped out of my program like three times. Did I ever tell you that?”

“No.”

“Yeah, I failed a lot of tests and got a lot of bad feedback from my professors. I’ve realized since then that a lot of it was sexist bullshit and old white men being grumpy about queer, female presenting people being in STEM, but at the time it felt really personal. It still feels really personal when something goes wrong in school. But then I have to remind myself that failing a test or messing up an analysis doesn’t really say anything about me, right? It’s just part of the process.”

“Flunking out seems like it does say something about you, though.”

“Well if they’re asking you if you want to come back, I’d say you’re not flunking out. But just for argument’s sake, even if you were, it wouldn’t say something about _you_. It would just say that wasn’t the right thing for you in that moment in time.”

“You’re being, like, creepily nice.”

They sigh dramatically. “What can I say, I’m a poor substitute for Phil. Why don’t you talk to him? I’m sure he could cheer you up.”

“He’s in Florida.”

“Skype exists, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t want to bug him, he’s with his family.”

“You’re idiots, the both of you. Fine. Be stubborn. See if I care.”

“Hey,” Dan calls before they reach the door, “thank you.”

“Thank me by talking to Phil.”

***

It takes Dan a day and a half before he works up the courage to do that, texting first to see when he’d be free. They wind up having to skype at 5 am Dan’s time on Saturday morning, midnight for Phil in Florida. The connection isn’t great and Phil’s a little grainy, but he’s Phil and he’s grinning on Dan’s screen and it’s more than enough after days of nothing but disjointed texts.

“Hey, Dan!”

“Hey. How’re the rabbits liking Florida?” He’d been joking, but Phil holds a rabbit up to the screen.

“They seem to be having a good vacation.”

“So not an allergy.” 

“No. It has just been this one, though.”

“Oh, that’s good! Right?” Dan adds when Phil doesn't respond. “Do you think they’re stopping?”

“No, I– they’re not going to stop on their own.”

“Oh. So you know what’s causing them, though? Has talking to your family helped?”

“Yeah, I know what’s causing them. It’s a thing– I guess it runs in my family. You know the psychic grandma I told you about? It happened to her too. Mum says it skips generations, so I won the lottery there, I guess. It doesn’t– it’s only happened to one other man in the history of the family, as far as we know.”

“Huh, weird. But it’s something you know how to handle, then?”

“Well, he did it for the rest of his life. But most of them have been able to stop it.”

“That’s great!” Dan’s really not sure what to do with the lack of enthusiasm coming from Phil. “So you think you can get it to stop?”

“It’s not really in my control.”

“Oh, okay. But you know what would stop it?”

“Yeah, I do. I actually– I need to talk to you.” Dan bites back a joke about them already talking.

“Okay. About the rabbits? If there’s anything I can do, I’m happy to do it.” Phil’s laughing, so Dan thinks it must be the shitty connection that’s making him look like he’s on the verge of tears.

“Yeah, kind of. There’s nothing you can do though, don’t worry about that. It’s something I’ve got to sort out.”

“Right. So what is it then? I’m getting a bit nervous.”

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s nothing bad. I hope, anyway. It’s just– I’d rather have this conversation in person.”

“So two weeks from now?” 

“Just like a week now. A little more.”

“Has anyone ever told you how cruel you are?”

“Constantly.” They take a moment to just grin at each other before Phil changes topics. “So what about you? How are you doing?”

Right. The whole reason Dan had called. 

“Uh, I– I got an email from my school.”

“Oh yeah?” His tone is cautious, face carefully blank.

“They want to know if I want to re-enroll in the fall.”

This time Phil doesn’t say anything at all, letting Dan sit in the silence. It works quicker than Dan thought it would, and he finds himself carrying on, with words he hadn’t even let himself think in his own head yet.

“I don’t think I do.”

“Okay.”

“Is it, though? I know I don’t want to go back, but I don’t know what I do want to do.”

“I had no idea what I wanted to do at your age. I still don’t. I’m 26 and throwing up rabbits. You don’t have to have it all figured out.”

“What about just a little bit figured out?”

“Well… you have a job, right? And it’s kinda cool, even if it’s not your dream job. Honestly, who’s got their dream job? And you’ve got a pretty decent flat. Nearly habitable, even. That’s pretty awesome for 21. Honest. I think you’re doing fine.” Dan wants to push back, feels the tidal wave of words pressing against his lips. But then again, he doesn’t. He wants to just believe Phil’s words and let them be his new reality, at least for now. Maybe he is doing fine. Not fantastic, not good even. Not yet. But fine works for now.

“Can you come back now, please? I miss you.”

“You miss me?” Phil repeats softy, and Dan’s brain is still only just catching up to what his mouth had said, but he’s still too sleepy to really care.

“‘Course, you spoon. I always miss you.”

“Dan, I– I’ve got to go, alright?” Somewhere along the way Phil’s tone shifted and he sounds agitated when he says this, but then it slips back into soft and warm and Phil when he says, “I miss you too. Don’t fall back asleep, you have to get to work soon.” 

Dan nods and hangs up, forgetting to actually say goodbye. He feeds the rabbits– there are still far too many of them, and Phil’s busy making more apparently– showers, eats, and manages to get himself out of the house somewhat on time. It’s a long slog through the day with two fewer hours of sleep and the words shared between the two of him resting heavy on his mind. He thinks he should probably be worrying about school and his quasi-decision to not go back, but his thoughts keep snagging on Phil’s words, and the way he’d phrased what he’d learned about the rabbits. It was something out of his control, that wouldn’t stop on his own. Something he wants to tell Dan in person. The answer seems like low hanging fruit, but Dan’s still afraid to grab at it.

Dan finds Nina over his lunch break to get a second opinion.

“You think Phil likes me, right?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“Like you’re not just teasing me? You actually thinks he likes me?” 

“I want to be sarcastic, but for the sake of getting you to leave me alone faster, yes, I think he likes you back.” 

“I never said anything about me liking him.”

“Okay,” she laughs. 

“And I’m staying, by the way. Not because of him. I don’t like law and I shouldn’t torture myself trying to finish a degree I don’t want. I like it here and it’s as good a place as any to figure out what I want to do next.”

“Fine by me.” 

Dan sequesters himself in the back for the rest of the day to get away from Nina’s knowing grin, busying himself washing pots and reorganizing the storage shelves until it’s time to go home again. Or back to Phil’s, he corrects himself.

Even without Phil there, going back to Phil’s flat feels more exciting than going home to his own, but also somehow more familiar. He bangs on the door before opening it and shoves aside any of the rabbits that didn’t get startled away by the loud noise. They gather around his feet again, clamoring for food and he tries not to trip as he fills the eight bowls with greens and a little scoop of pellets. Once they’re all distracted he checks all of the water bowls before emptying the litter boxes and restocking them with litter and hay.

Rabbits sorted, he grabs some form of food and settles onto the couch for TV or video games. These things are better, of course, with Phil here too but it feels enough to have carved out this little niche in Phil’s life, even if he’s going to have to relinquish it when Phil returns. 

Some of the rabbits wander back over towards him when they’re done eating, and he scoops one of the braver ones up to sit on the couch with him. He considers it for a moment, then crouches over to look it in the eye.

“I like Phil back.” The rabbit just blinks, nose fluttering rapidly. Dan sighs, leaning forward to press his nose to the rabbits quickly. “Alright, fair enough.”

He’s just settled into his groove and is about to beat the level of Sonic that had been stumping Phil before he left when he hears a series of thumps followed by a rattle at the front door. Dan’s first instinct it to freeze, but the rattling gets louder and he has to remind himself that he’s not a rabbit and sitting stock still while a home invader breaks in isn’t going to do him any good. He’s considering the best hiding place when a muttered curse from outside the door spurs him into action. He jumps up and grabs the nearest object, inching his way towards the door.

“Hello,” he calls, pitching his voice down as low as he can manage. For a terrifying second Dan considers if confronting this burglar is the worst decision he’s ever made, but then the door swings open, revealing Phil.

“Dan?”

“What the fuck are you doing?

“What are you doing?” Phil asks, cocking his head at the package of timothy hay Dan’s still holding aloft. He lowers it slowly. 

“Protecting myself from the intruder.”

“This is my flat.”

“Yeah and you’re supposed to be in Florida. What about your vacation?”

“I put in a few days. And besides, my family goes to Florida twice a year, I can wait until October.”

“Rich boy,” Dan scoffs, heart still hammering away in his chest. 

“Have you actually been sleeping here?” He asks this with a smile, but Dan still feels the need to defend himself.

“You told me I could! And I had to watch your damn rabbits! I’ve heard you talk about them like they’re your children. I’m not risking one of them getting hurt when I’m not here.”

“I like you.”

“Oh,” Dan says, more an exhale than anything else. He’s got words to say too, but Phil carries on, so Dan just listens. 

“I mean like, like you, like you. No. I’ve got a crush– augh! I swear I practiced on the plane and came up with a way to say this that didn’t make me sound like an 8 year old. The lady next to me on the plane said it sounded pretty impressive.”

“I’m sure it did.”

“Okay well either way I like you. So I’ve said it.”

“Alright.” Dan waits, wondering if Phil expecting some sort of prize for just blurting it out. 

“So the rabbits can stop now. That’s why the rabbits–“

“Yeah, I figured.”

“You did? Since when?”

“Not too long ago.”

“Well there it is. My family vomits rabbits when we’ve got unrequited feelings and I have to tell you so it’s out there and I can get over it and–“

“Your rabbits are dumb as fuck.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. They’re stupid. They shouldn’t exist because your feelings aren’t unrequited.”

“Oh.” Phil wobbles in place a bit, like he meant to move but didn’t quite make it. “Maybe you should tell them that.”

“I tried. They’re still here.”

“Good. I like them.”

“No, you can’t keep them all. We can’t have 9 rabbits.”

“We?”

“No. Not– I just meant I’m not going to keep visiting you if you have more than one rabbit. And I’m certainly not watching them the next time you go out of town.”

“What about three?”

“What about none?”

“I think we should try something.”

“Oh yeah?” Dan asks, voice barely a rasp. 

“Well in fairy tales it usually takes a kiss to break the curse, right?”

“Are we in a fairy tale?”

“It can’t hurt to check, can it?”

“You know, for future reference, you don’t need to come up with these elaborate schemes if you want to kiss me, you can just–” Dan doesn’t get to finish his thought and he gets tugged forward roughly. Their mouths meet with a little too much force at first, but Dan’s hands find Phil’s face and he rubs little circles into Phil’s cheekbones as he repositions their heads and everything starts to make a little more sense. Or no sense at all.

Phil’s hands running up his back and over his shoulders steal all the sense from him entirely until he’s just left with a clamouring want for Phil to press closer and kiss deeper and tug at his hair just like that. Phil’s psychic abilities must have kicked in while he was away, because he follows through with Dan’s whirring thoughts. Dan tries to silently tell him that a bed or couch or even a wall would be great right now, and he’s starting to think Phil really might be able to read his mind, until Phil tugs away entirely and bends over the side of the couch, retching. 

He pops back up with another rabbit in hand and Dan wants to scream. Instead, he gently takes the rabbit from Phil and puts it on the floor. He helps Phil to sit down on the couch and goes to grab him a glass of water. When he gets back Phil’s got his phone up to his ear.

“Mum? Yeah. Yes, it was fine. No turbulence. No, I– yeah. He’s here. Yeah, he says hi too. No– mum! How am I supposed to stop them. I did. Yeah, he does. But– okay fine. Love you too.”

“Well?” Dan asks.

“She said it’s just gonna take a little while to get it out of my system. I’ve got to believe you, like really trust that you, um, like me too, before they completely go away.”

“I guess I’ll just have to keep reminding you then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! The rabbit plot line was loosely based on Julio Cortázar's 'Letters to a young lady in Paris.'
> 
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> [Tumblr post here](https://phanomeheart.tumblr.com/post/185108133503/like-a-perhaps-hand-which-comes-carefully-out-of)


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